Architecture Exploration for a Reconfigurable Architecture Template

Coarse-grained architectures (CGRAs) can be tailored and optimized for different application domains. The vast design space of coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures complicates the design of optimized processors. The goal is to design a domain-specific processor that provides just enough-flexibility for that domain while minimizing the energy consumption for a given level of performance. However, a flexible architecture template and a retargetable simulator and compiler enable systematic architecture exploration that can lead to more efficient domain-specific architecture design. This article presents such an environment and an architecture exploration for a novel CGRA template.