REMARC � Recon�gurable Multimedia Array Coprocessor

This paper describes a new recon�gurable processor ar� chitecture called REMARC �Recon�gurable Multime� dia Array Coprocessor�. REMARC is a recon�gurable coprocessor that is tightly coupled to a main RISC pro� cessor and consists of a global control unit and 64 pro� grammable logic blocks called nano processors. RE� MARC is designed to accelerate multimedia applica� tions � such as video compression � decompression � and image processing. These applications typically use 8� bit or 16�bit data therefore � each nano processor has a 16�bit datapath that is much wider than those of other recon�gurable coprocessors. We have developed a pro� gramming environment for REMARC and several real� istic application programs � DES encryption � MPEG�2 decoding � and MPEG�2 encoding. REMARC achieves speedups ranging from a factor of 2.3 to 21.2 on these applications.