GRAPE-II - A SYSTEM-LEVEL PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENT FOR DSP APPLICATIONS

Grape-II (Graphical Rapid Prototyping Environment) is an advanced syst em-level development environment for specifying, compiling, debugging, simulating, and emulating digital-signal-processing applications. Its structured prototyping methodology reduces programming effort, and it s use of general-purpose reusable hardware minimizes development cost. The general-purpose hardware consists of commercial DSP processors, b ond-out versions of core processors, and FPGAs linked to form a powerf ul, heterogeneous multiprocessor, such as the Paradigm RP developed wi thin the Retides (Real-Time DSP Emulation System) Esprit project and m arketed by InCA/Zycad. Grape-II automates the prototyping methodology for these systems by offering tools for resource estimation, partition ing, assignment, routing, scheduling, code generation, and parameter m odification. This prototyping approach has been successfully used for an audio processor for the consumer market, for a sender, receiver and channel simulator for digital audio broadcasting, and for a real-time video encoder for mobile applications. The video-encoder case study, described in the article, resulted in a full-speed operational prototy pe. This and other successes demonstrate the feasibility of the author s' strategy for prototyping real-time color video compression on a com mercial DSP multiprocessor.