ARTEMI: Methodologies for complex systems design based on configurable architectures. Its application to the design of multimedia terminals for broadcast networks.

Funding

MCYT.

Duration

December 2003 to November 2006

Summary

In the late years, the submicron technologies advance has allowed to reach densities of integration of hundreds of million transistors, making possible the integration of complete systems in a single chip. This advance has also been reflected in the programmable logic devices which, at present, may include embedded microprocessors and millions of gates. This fact is forcing the designers to adapt and to develop design methodologies that involve and integrate the use of architectural synthesis tools, hardware-software codesign tools and the intensive use of re-usable modules.

The research activity of this project has as essential purpose the establishment of methodologies for the design of complex digital systems using programmable logic devices with embedded microprocessors as target technology and the multimedia systems for broadcasting networks design as reference application due to its high industrial interest in the consumer electronics market. In the design flow of this kind of systems, the processes of optimal mapping between functions and computation resources require a complete exploration of the configurable architectures space on the platform, and are crucial for the problem solution and the reached performance.

The design and optimization process is applied, in particular, to a novel demonstrator able to filter and to extract IP data (HTML pages, streaming, etc.) and digital television broadcasted through the digital radio network. In addition, the system will include MPEG-4 decoding and a processing mechanism for the digital TV signal improvement -using super-resolution techniques- and the visualization in small-format graphic LCD modules.