Synthesis of application-specific multiprocessor systems

The current VLSI/ULSI technology enables the implementation of a complicated system in a single chip at a low cost. Thus it has become cost effective to design special-purpose multiprocessor architectures for computational-intensive applications in signal processing, control of power systems and robotics. In this paper, we introduce a novel design methodology based on the problem-space genetic algorithms for the synthesis of application-specific multiprocessor systems to meet the various cost and performance constraints, not merely the mapping of tasks onto a given system. The design methodology for the synthesis of a custom heterogeneous multiprocessor system selects the number and type of processor, finds an interconnection pattern between processors, maps the subtasks onto the system and provides a static schedule for the subtasks execution for a given application specified in terms of a task flow graph.