Application-specific regular array processors have been widely used in signal and image processing, multimedia and communication systems, for example, in data compression and HDTV. One of the main problems of application-specific computing is how to map algorithms into hardware. The major achievement of the theory of regular arrays is that an algorithm, represented as a data dependence graph, is embedded into a Euclidean space, where the integer points are the elementary computations and the dependencies between computations are denoted by vectors between points. The process of mapping an algorithm into hardware is reduced to finding, for the given Euclidean space, a new coordinate system that can be associated with the physical properties of space and time - so called space-time. The power of the synthesis method is that it provides a bridge between "abstract" and "physical" representations of algorithms, thus providing a methodological basis for synthesizing computations in space and in time. This book will extend the existing synthesis theory by exploiting the associativity and commutativity of computations. The practical upshot being a controlled increase in the dimensionality of the Euclidean space representing an algorithm. This increase delivers more degrees of freedom in the choice of the space-time mapping and leads, subsequently, to more choice in the selection of cost-effective application-specific designs.

This textbook is intended to give an introduction to and an overview of sta- of-the-art techniques in the design of complex embedded systems. The book title is SAMOS for two major reasons. First, it tries to focus on the actual distinct, yet important problem ?elds of System-Level design of embedded systems, including mapping techniques and synthesis,Architectural design,Modeling issues such as speci?cation languages, formal models, and- nallySimulation. The second reason is that the volume includes a number of papers presented at a workshop with the same name on the Island of Samos, Greece, in July 2001. In order to receive international attention, a number of reputed researchers were invited to this workshop to present their current work. Participation was by invitation only. For the volume presented here, a number of additional papers where selected based on a call for papers. All contributions were refereed. This volume presents a selection of 18 of the refereed papers, including 2 invited papers. The textbook is organized according to four topics: The ?rst isA)System- LevelDesignandSimulation.Inthissection,wepresentacollectionofpapers that give an overview of the challenging goal to design and explore alternatives of embedded system implementations at the system-level. One paper gives an overview of models and tools used in system-level design. The other papers present new models to describe applications, provide models for re?nement and design space exploration, and for tradeo? analysis between cost and ?exibility of an implementation.

The main intention of this book is to give an impression of the state-of-the-art in system-level memory management (data transfer and storage) related issues for complex data-dominated real-time signal and data processing applications. The material is based on research at IMEC in this area in the period 1989- 1997. In order to deal with the stringent timing requirements and the data dominated characteristics of this domain, we have adopted a target architecture style and a systematic methodology to make the exploration and optimization of such systems feasible. Our approach is also very heavily application driven which is illustrated by several realistic demonstrators, partly used as red-thread examples in the book. Moreover, the book addresses only the steps above the traditional high-level synthesis (scheduling and allocation) or compilation (traditional or ILP oriented) tasks. The latter are mainly focussed on scalar or scalar stream operations and data where the internal structure of the complex data types is not exploited, in contrast to the approaches discussed here. The proposed methodologies are largely independent of the level of programmability in the data-path and controller so they are valuable for the realisation of both hardware and software systems. Our target domain consists of signal and data processing systems which deal with large amounts of data.

The splitting extrapolation method is a newly developed technique for solving multidimensional mathematical problems. It overcomes the difficulties arising from Richardson's extrapolation when applied to these problems and obtains higher accuracy solutions with lower cost and a high degree of parallelism. The method is particularly suitable for solving large scale scientific and engineering problems.This book presents applications of the method to multidimensional integration, integral equations and partial differential equations. It also gives an introduction to combination methods which are relevant to splitting extrapolation. The book is intended for those who may exploit these methods and it requires only a basic knowledge of numerical analysis.