System Level Design with SPADE: an M-JPEG Case Study

In this paper we present and evaluate the SPADE (System level Performance Analysis and Design space Exploration) methodol-ogy through an illustrative case study. SPADE is a method and tool for architecture exploration of heterogeneous signal process-ing systems. In this case study we start from an M-JPEG ap-plication and use SPADE to evaluate alternative multi-processor architectures for implementing this application. SPADE follows the Y-chart paradigm for system level design; application and ar-chitecture are modeled separately and mapped onto each other in an explicit design step. SPADE permits architectures to be modeled at an abstract level using a library of generic building blocks, thereby reducing the cost of model construction and sim-ulation. The case study shows that SPADE supports efficient ex-ploration of candidate architectures; models can be easily con-structed, modified and simulated in order to quickly evaluate al-ternative system implementations. Keywords system level design, design space exploration, application mod-eling, architecture modeling, M-JPEG 1