Implementation and Performance Evaluation of Polyphase Filter Banks on the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture

This thesis investigates the performance of the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) Architecture for executing a Polyphase Filter Bank algorithm, used for efficient signal channelisation. The heterogeneous multi-core architecture of the Cell BE is introduced and important considerations for developing programs for the Cell BE are discussed. The Polyphase Filter Bank DFT channeliser is discussed in depth, and the process of mapping this algorithm onto the Cell BE processor architecture is shown. An evaluation of the performance of the Polyphase Filter Bank algorithm on the Cell BE processor is presented with results obtained from the Sony Playstation 3 and the IBM Full System Simulator. The effect of the parameters of the algorithm on the performance is investigated. The Cell BE processor is shown to be efficient for some algorithms, and the factors that have both positive and negative impact on its performance are presented. The current implementation of the Cell BE processor has some important limitations for use in scientifi