ABSTRACT
The focus of this book is the exploration of architectures and design methodologies for application-specific parallel systems in the general domain of embedded applications in digital signal processing (DSP). In the DSP domain, such multiprocessors typically consist of one or more central processing units (microcontrollers or programmable digital signal processors), and one or more application-specific hardware components (implemented as custom application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or reconfigurable logic such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)). Such embedded multiprocessor systems are becoming increasingly common today in applications ranging from digital audio/ video equipment to portable devices such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants. With increasing levels of integration, it is now feasible to integrate such heterogeneous systems entirely on a single chip. The design task of such multiprocessor systems-on-a-chip is complex, and the complexity will only increase in the future.
