Abstract
A high-performance data-path to implement DSP kernels is introduced in this paper. The data-path
is realized by a Flexible Computational Component (FCC), which is a pure combinational circuit
and it can implement any 2x2 template (cluster) of primitive resources. Thus, the data-path’s
performance benefits from the intra-component? chaining of operations.? Due to the flexible
structure of the FCC, the data-path is implemented by a small number of such components. This
allows for direct connections among FCCs and for exploiting inter-component chaining, which
further improves performance. Due to the universality and flexibility of the FCC, simple and
efficient algorithms perform scheduling and binding of the Data Flow Graph. DSP benchmarks
synthesized with the FCC data-path method show significant performance improvements when
compared with template-based data-path designs. Detailed results on execution time, FCC
utilization, and area are presented.