IMPROVED FORCE-DIRECTED SCHEDULING IN HIGH-THROUGHPUT DIGITAL SIGNAL-PROCESSING

This paper discusses improved force-directed scheduling and its applic ation in the design of high-throughput DSP systems, such as real-time video VLSI circuits, We present a mathematical justification of the te chnique of force-directed scheduling, introduced by Paulin and Knight, and we show how the algorithm can be used to find cost-effective time assignments and resource allocations, allowing trade offs between pro cessing units and memories, Furthermore, we present modifications that improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the algorithm, The si gnificance of the improvements is illustrated by an empirical performa nce analysis based on a number of problem instances.