Stream processor architecture

  • Authors:
  • Scott Rixner

  • Affiliations:
  • Rice University, Houston, TX

  • Venue:
  • Stream processor architecture
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Stream Processor Architecture presents the architecture of the Imagine streaming media processor, which delivers a peak performance of 20 billion floating-point operations per second. Imagine efficiently supports 48 arithmetic units with a three-tiered data bandwidth hierarchy. At the base of the hierarchy, the streaming memory system employs memory access scheduling to maximize the sustained bandwidth of external DRAM. At the center of the hierarchy, the global stream register file enables streams of data to be recirculated directly from one computation kernel to the next without returning data to memory. Finally, local distributed register files that directly feed the arithmetic units enable temporary data to be stored locally so that it does not need to consume costly global register bandwidth. The bandwidth hierarchy enables Imagine to achieve up to 96% of the performance of a stream processor with infinite bandwidth from memory and the global register file.