An MPEG-2 decoder case study as a driver for a system level design methodology

We present a case study on the design of a heterogeneous archi-tecture for MPEG-2 video decoding. The primary objective of the case study is the validation of the SPADE methodology for archi-tecture exploration. The case study demonstrates that this method-ology provides a structured approach to the efficient evaluation of the performance of candidate architectures for selected benchmark applications. We learned that the MPEG-2 decoder can conve-niently be modeled as a Kahn Process Network using a simple API. Abstract models of architectures can be constructed efficiently us-ing a library of generic building blocks. A trace driven simulation technique enables the use of these abstract models for performance analysis with correct handling of data dependent behavior. We per-formed a design space exploration to derive how the performance of the decoder depends on the busload and the frame rate.