Development of a load balancing tool for the GRAPE rapid prototyping environment

In the graphical programming environment GRAPE-II intended for rapid prototyping of DSP ASICs on a multi-processor, a load balancing tool is required to map the different jobs of the DSP application on the multi-processor. Since most of the existing load balancing algorithms perform less well when they have to handle large or complex applications, the authors develop a tool that is better suited for such problems. This tool is based on three main techniques. (1) By exploiting the hierarchy that exists in the application graph, the complexity for each of the tools can be reduced. (2) Splitting the load balancing in sub tasks leads to three smaller search spaces instead of one big space. (3) Each of the smaller search spaces on its turn is reduced by using appropriate heuristic rules. As an example of this approach the scheduling tool and the basics of the assignment tool are presented