Multiple-Morphs Adaptive Stream Architecture

In modern VLSI technology, hundreds of thousands of arithmeticunits fit on a 1cm^2 chip. The challenge is supplying themwith instructions and data. Stream architecture is able to solve theproblem well. However, the applications suited for typical streamarchitecture are limited. This paper presents the definition of regularstream and irregular stream, and then describes MASA (Multiple-morphsAdaptive Stream Architecture) prototype system which supports differentexecution models according to applications' stream characteristics.This paper first discusses MASA architecture and stream model, and thenexplores the features and advantages of MASA through mapping streamapplications to hardware. Finally MASA is evaluated by ten benchmarks.The result is encouraging.