The set, known as ATOMIUM, is a comprehensive set of interactive tools that traverses application code, optimizing it to reduce the number and cost of memory transactions. It then assists users in defining the optimum configurations of memory arrays to support the code. The process can result in dramatic reductions in system energy consumption as well as die area.

Previous tools in the suite include programs that profile memory accesses, explore the interactions between timing constraints and memory requirements on the optimized code and assist in optimizing memory allocation.

IMEC (l'Institut Mémoires de l'édition contemporaine, Leuven, Belgium) has now added ATOMIUM/Memory Architect to the tool suite. The software reads an application in ANSI-C, and inputs timing constraints for the application, a library of the memory types available to the design and a user-defined mapping of data structures to the memory hierarchy.

It then produces a set of memory modules, specified in size, number of ports, type and bit width. In addition, the tool assigns data structures to the memory blocks it has defined, estimates the power, area and performance characteristics of the memory structure and its impact on overall system performance.

All this is done through an interactive graphical interface. The tool is currently available to IMEC partners working on the consortium's MPEG-4 and advanced SoC programs.

By: DocMemory
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