Date of Award

12-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

David M. Gallagher, PhD

Abstract

Microprogrammed Digital Signal Processors (DSP) are frequently used as a solution to embedded processor applications. These processors utilize a control memory which permits execution of the processor's instruction set architecture (ISA). The control memory can take the form of a static, read only memory (ROM) or a dynamic, writeable control memory (WCM), or both. Microcoding the WCM permits redefining the processor's ISA and provides speedup due to its instruction level parallelism (ILP) potential. In the past, code generation efforts for microprogrammable processors focused on creating assembly and microcode as two separate steps. In this thesis an alternative approach was chosen which combines the separate code generation steps into one automated, dual-target compilation process using the advanced techniques of VLIW compiler technology. The architecture chosen for this effort is a microprogrammable DSP being developed by Rome Labs, New York. The prototype compiler developed in this effort has demonstrated the potential for speedup of microcoded program portions over their assembly code counterparts. Therefore, the feasibility of program speedup produced by a dual-target compiler using VLIW compilation techniques has been validated.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENG-GCS-97D-19

DTIC Accession Number

ADA335547

Share

COinS