Synchroscalar: Evaluation of an embedded, multi-core architecture for media applications

We present an overview of the Synchroscalar single-chip, multi-core processor. Through the design of Synchroscalar, we find that high energy efficiency and low complexity can be attained through parallelization. The importance of adequate inter-core interconnect is also demonstrated. We discuss the impact of having multiple frequency and voltage domains on chip to reduce the power consumption where parallelization fails. Finally, we investigate how the ad-hoc selection of tile size that is currently used in most single-chip multi-core processors impacts the power consumption of these architectures.