A new Approach for Minimizing Buffer Capacities with Throughput Constraint for Embedded System Design.

Mohamed Benazouz (1) , Olivier Marchetti (1) , Alix Munier-Kordon (1) , Pascal Urard (2)

1 ALSOC - Architecture et Logiciels pour Systèmes Embarqués sur Puce
2 ST-CROLLES - STMicroelectronics [Crolles]

The design of streaming (e.g. multimedia or network packet processing) applications must consider several optimizations such as the mimimization of the whole surface of the memory needed on a Chip. The minimum throughput of the output is usually fixed. In this paper, we present an original methodology to solve this problem. The application is modelled using a Marked Timed Weighted Event Graphs (in short MTWEG), which is a subclass of Petri nets. Transitions correspond to specific treatments and the places model buffers for data transfers. It is assumed that transitions are periodically fired with a fixed throughput. The problem is first mathematically modelled using an Integer Linear Program. We then study for a unique buffer the optimum throughput according to the capacity. A first polynomial simple algorithm computing the minimum surface for a fixed throughput is derived when there is no circuit in the initial MTWEG, which corresponds to a wide class of applications. We prove in this case that the capacities of every buffer may be optimized independently. For general MTWEG, the problem is NP-Hard and an original polynomial 2-approximation algorithm is presented. For practical applications, the solution computed is very close to the optimum.

Mots clés: Streaming applications.; Streaming applications; Timed Weighted Event Graphs; Synchronous Dataflow; Buffer minimization

Domaines: Recherche opérationnelle [math.OC]

Mohamed Benazouz, Olivier Marchetti, Alix Munier-Kordon, Pascal Urard. A new Approach for Minimizing Buffer Capacities with Throughput Constraint for Embedded System Design.. AICCSA IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications, May 2010, Hammamet, Tunisia. pp.1-8, ⟨10.1109/AICCSA.2010.5586972⟩. ⟨hal-00368648⟩