Retargetable very long instructionword compiler framework for digital signal processors

Digital signal processors (DSP) are used in a wide variety of embedded systems ranging from safety critical flight navigation systems to common electronic items such as cameras, printers and cellular phones. DSPs are also some of the more popular processing element cores available in the market today for use in system-on-a-chip (SOC)-based design methodology for embedded processors. These systems not only have to meet the real-time constraints and power consumption requirements of the application domain, but also need to adapt to the fast-changing applications for which they are used. Thus, it is very important that the target processor be well matched to the particular application to meet the design goals. This in turn requires that DSP compilers need to produce good quality code and be highly retargetable to enable a system designer to quickly evaluate different architectures for the application on hand.