Microprocessor Architectures: From VLIW to TTA (Wiley Series in Microwave and Optical)

Exploring new trends in computer technology, Corporal introduces an innovative and exciting concept: Transport Triggered Architecture (TTAs). Unlike most traditional architectures, where programmed operations trigger internal data transports, TTAs function through programming the data transports themselves. As a result the new architecture alleviates bottlenecks, allows for new code-generation optimizations and exploits hardware more efficiently. Founded on the author s recent research, this book evaluates the attributes of different classes of architectures. It demonstrates how TTAs can be used as a template for automatic generation of application-specific processors and highlights their suitability for embedded system design. Several commercial TTA implementations have proven its concepts and advantages.

Features includes:

• Complexity analysis of the data path of Instruction Level Parallel processors, particularly of VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) and super-pipelined processors
• Derivation of the transport triggering concept illustrating processor simplification
• In-depth analysis of the architecture design space of TTAs and evaluation of architecture parameters
• Examination of the control and pipelining of instruction, function and register units
• Description of a trajectory for the automatic synthesis of TTAs for arbitrary applications written in a high-level language
• Detailed description of a prototype TTA processor enabling the reader to design an embedded computer system with excellent cost-performance ratio

Microprocessor Architectures is cutting-edge text which will prove invaluable to both industrial hardware and software engineers involved in embedded system design and to postgraduate electrical engineering and computer science students. This clearly-structured reference demonstrates the versatility of TTAs and explores their influential role in the next generation of computer architecture.