A co-design framework with OpenCL support for low-energy wide SIMD processor

Energy efficiency is one of the most important metrics in embedded processor design. The use of wide SIMD architecture is a promising approach to build energy-efficient high performance embedded processors. In this paper, we propose a design framework for a configurable wide SIMD architecture that utilizes an explicit datapath to achieve high energy efficiency. The framework is able to generate processor instances based on architecture specification files. It includes a compiler to efficiently program the proposed architecture with standard programming languages including OpenCL. This compiler can analyze the static memory access patterns in OpenCL kernels, generate efficient mappings, and schedule the code to fully utilize the explicit datapath. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed architecture is efficient and scalable in terms of area, performance, and energy. In a 128-PE SIMD processor, the proposed architecture is able to achieve up to 200 times speed-up and reduce the total energy consumption by 50 % compared to a basic RISC processor.