A design study of a 0.25-μm video signal processor

This paper presents a detailed design study of a high-speed, single-chip architecture for video signal processing (VSP), developed as part of the Princeton VSP Project. In order to define the architectural parameters by examining the area and delay tradeoffs, we start by designing parameterizable versions of key modules, and we perform VLSI modeling experiments in a 0.25-mu m process. Based on the properties of these modules, we propose a VLIW (very long instruction word) VSP architecture that features 32-64 operations per cycle at clock rates well in excess of 600 MHz, and that includes a significant amount of on-chip memory. VLIW architectures provide predictable, efficient, high performance, and benefit from mature compiler technology. As explained later, a VLIW video processor design requires flexible, high-bandwidth interconnect at fast cycle times, and presents some unique VLSI tradeoffs and challenges in maintaining high clock rates while providing high parallelism and utilization.