dc.contributor.advisor |
Aghdasi, F. |
|
dc.contributor.advisor |
Kinyua, J. |
|
dc.contributor.advisor |
Central University of Technology, Free State. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. School of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering |
|
dc.contributor.author |
Mutigwe, Charles |
|
dc.date.accessioned |
2014-10-18T16:23:54Z |
|
dc.date.available |
2014-10-18T16:23:54Z |
|
dc.date.issued |
2012 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/11462/163 |
|
dc.description |
Thesis (D. Tech. (Engineering: Electrical)) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2012 |
en_US |
dc.description.abstract |
This thesis describes a method for the automatic generation of appli- cation speci_c processors. The thesis was organized into three sepa- rate but interrelated studies, which together provide: a justi_cation for the method used, a theory that supports the method, and a soft- ware application that realizes the method. The _rst study looked at how modern day microprocessors utilize their hardware resources and it proposed a metric, called core density, for measuring the utilization rate. The core density is a function of the microprocessor's instruction set and the application scheduled to run on that microprocessor. This study concluded that modern day microprocessors use their resources very ine_ciently and proposed the use of subset processors to exe- cute the same applications more e_ciently. The second study sought to provide a theoretical framework for the use of subset processors by developing a generic formal model of computer architecture. To demonstrate the model's versatility, it was used to describe a number of computer architecture components and entire computing systems. The third study describes the development of a set of software tools that enable the automatic generation of application speci_c proces- sors. The FiT toolkit automatically generates a unique Hardware Description Language (HDL) description of a processor based on an application binary _le and a parameterizable template of a generic mi- croprocessor. Area-optimized and performance-optimized custom soft processors were generated using the FiT toolkit and the utilization of the hardware resources by the custom soft processors was character- ized. The FiT toolkit was combined with an ANSI C compiler and a third-party tool for programming _eld-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to create an unconstrained C-to-silicon compiler. |
en_US |
dc.format.extent |
4 801 938 bytes |
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dc.format.mimetype |
application/pdf |
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dc.language.iso |
en_US |
en_US |
dc.publisher |
Bloemfontein : Central University of Technology, Free State |
|
dc.subject |
Central University of Technology, Free State - Dissertations |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Application-specific integrated circuits - Design and construction |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Compilers (Computer programmes) |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Microprocessors - Design and construction |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Field programmable gate arrays |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Computer architecture |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Application software - Automatic control |
en_US |
dc.subject |
Dissertations, Academic - South Africa - Bloemfontein |
en_US |
dc.title |
Automatic synthesis of application-specific processors |
en_US |
dc.type |
Thesis |
en_US |
dc.rights.holder |
Central University of Technology, Free State |
|