THE EVOLUTION OF THE PAPRICA SYSTEM

PAPRICA project started in 1988 as an experimental VLSI architecture d evoted to the efficient computation of data with two-dimensional struc ture. The main goal of the project is to develop a subsystem that coul d operate as an attached processing unit to a standard workstation and in perspective as a specialized processing module in dedicated system s devoted to low-level image analysis, cellular neural networks emulat ion, and DRC algorithms. The architecture has been extensively used fo r basic low level image analysis tasks up to optical now computation a nd feature tracking, showing encouraging performances even in the firs t prototype version. The paper discusses the current implementation an d presents a critical analysis of the project, allowing identification of some crucial points of PAPRICA design (and of array processors in general) that must be carefully considered in the case of redesign. (C ) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.