System design of full HD MVC decoding on mesh-based multicore NoCs

• Future multimedia applications such as full HD (1920 x 1080) multiview video coding (MVC) present great challenges on computing architectures. Even if with the state-of-the-art ASIC technology which can process single view HD decoding, dealing with multiple views would require times of computation capacity in proportion to the number of views, which is difficult to achieve. In this paper, we explore the system-level design space for full HD MVC applications mapped onto mesh-based multicore Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures. To this end, we establish a simulation framework capable of simulating the combination of communication networks with computing cores. We investigate two task assignment schemes: picture-level assignment and view-level assignment. With an eight-view MVC decoding, we explore the design options with respect to network size, single-core performance and link bandwidth under both task assignment schemes. Our studies show that, to achieve a certain decoding performance, the computation capability and communication capacity should be balanced in the system. Also, to realize the eight-view HD decoding, the system only requires twice or less than twice of the single-core processing capacity required by single view decoding, thanks to the parallel computation and communication enabled by the multicore NoC architectures. Our results exhibit feasibility and potential of efficiently implementing the full HD MVC decoding on multicore NoC architectures.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Application-specific

Homogeneous NoC

Exploration framework

Full HD MVC decoding

Multicore architecture

Communication and computation

Electrical engineering, electronics and photonics

Elektroteknik, elektronik och fotonik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)