This paper describes the MetaCore system which is an application-specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) development system targeted for digital signal processor (DSP) applications. The goal of the MetaCore system is to offer an efficient design methodology meeting specifications given as a combination of performance, cost, and design turnaround time. The MetaCore system consists of two major design stages: design exploration and design generation. In the design exploration stage, MetaCore system accepts a set of benchmark programs and structural/behavioral specifications for the target processor and estimates the hardware cost and performance for each hardware configuration being explored. Once a hardware configuration and instruction set are chosen, the system helps generate the target processor design in the form of hardware description language (HDL) along with the application program development tools such as C compiler, assembler, and instruction set simulator. The effectiveness of the MetaCore system was verified with a successful design of MDSP-II, a programmable DSP processor targeted for mobile communication.

The design of application-specific processor for DSP applications is not only driven by low-cost requirements, but also needs to fulfil constraints in terms of short development time. MetaCore, a configurable and instruction-level extensible DSP core, can effectively satisfy these requirements by providing a high degree of customization to the given application. In this paper, we present architectural concept of MetaCore and the MetaCore development platform. And we also present the first-generation MetaCore product version, MDSP16, which is a 16-by-16 fixed-point DSP processor. MDSP1.6 was implemented using 0.6 /spl mu/m TLM CMOS technology and has 50 MIPS peak performance.

This paper describes the MetaCore system which is an ASIP (Application-Specific Instruction set Processor) development system targeted for DSP applications. The goal of MetaCore system is to offer an efficient design methodology meeting specifications given as a combination of performance, cost and design turnaround time.