Typical image processing systems require various access patterns such as horizontal vector accesses (1 x pq), vertical vector accesses (pq x 1) and block accesses (p x q). To maximize the performance, it is desirable to have the specialized memory system which can be accessed by the above patterns as well as to increase the processor speed.
There are some problems in the memory system for image processing, one of which is the complexity of system circuit. There have been some improvement focusing on the address generation circuit which needs modula operation on the prime number. Nevertheless, system complexity is still high.
We propose a new ROM-based approach, which contains the semi-address information. It can solve two troublesome problems, one is the modular operation in the address generation circuit which can be replaced with the semi-address ROM, and the other is the shuffling and routing operation in which the information of the semi-address ROM can be fully utilized.
We implemented the memory system based on the semi-address ROM onto the small computer system. It not only shows the good performance in low level image processing but also saves the circuit complexity significantly.
