EE382C Embedded Software Systems
Lecture 15: Native Signal Processing

Guest Lecture

• Overview
• Performance Analysis

Native Signal Processing

• 1995: Sun implemented a set of signal processing and graphics extensions on its UltraSPARC I processor known as the Visual Instruction Set (VIS) [1]. Later, Sun released the UltraSPARC II with VIS.
• 1996: Intel implemented a set of multimedia extensions (MMX) for its Pentium Pro. Later, Intel released Pentium II and Pentium III processors.
• Both MMX and VIS uses a single-instruction multiple-data architecture which performs a single operation on a 64-bit register
• MMX has a multiply-accumulate instruction and saturation arithmetic, whereas VIS does not
• For MMX and VIS, speedups for digital signal processing applications are modest (1.5:1 to 2:1) but speedups for graphics operations are high (4:1 to 6:1)

Benchmarking

• Intel libraries
• Benchmarks for digital signal processing kernels by Berkeley Design Technology Inc.
• EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium for control-oriented kernels
• Summary of Selected Papers at the 1999 IEEE Int. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing

References

1. William Chen, H. John Reekie, Sunil Bhave, and Edward A. Lee, "Native Signal Processing on the UltraSparc in the Ptolemy Environment", Proc. IEEE Asilomar Conf. on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov. 1-4, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 1368-1372.
2. Ravi Bhargava, Ramesh Radhakrishnan, Brian L. Evans, and Lizy K. John, "Evaluating MMX Technology Using DSP and Multimedia Applications", Proc. IEEE Int. Sym. on Microarchitecture, Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 1998, Dallas, TX, pp. 37-46.