The Programmable and Configurable Low Level Vision Unit of the HERMIA Machine

In this work the Low Level Vision Unit (LLVU) of the Heterogeneous and Reconfigurable Machine for Image Analysis (HERMIA) is described. The LLVU consists of the innovative integration of six A1 10 DSP (Digital Signal Processing). Two main features have been considered in the design: the generality and the extendibility; the LLVU can be fully programmable and the network interconnection of the IMS A1 10 can be easily reconfigured by the user. The operator can choose among different options to tailor its applications: single (8 bit) or double (16 bit) precision in data or in the MAC coefficients, producing 22 or 32 bit output, 1 or 2 (cascade or parallel) kernels with programmable width and height.