July 2008
Intermediate to advanced
544 pages
16h 52m
English
Content preview from Computers as Components, 2nd Edition
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356 CHAPTER 7 Multiprocessors
7.2 CPUs AND ACCELERATORS
One important category of PE for embedded multiprocessor is the accelerator.
An accelerator is attached to CPU buses to quickly execute certain key functions.
Accelerators can provide large performance increases for applications with com-
putational kernels that spend a great deal of time in a small section of code.
Accelerators can also provide critical speedups for low-latency I/O functions.
The design of accelerated systems is one example of hardware/software
co-design—the simultaneous design of hardware and software to meet system
objectives. Thus far, we have taken the computing platform