Modeling Stream-Based Applications Using the SBF Model of Computation

Modeling applications and architectures at various levels of abstraction is becoming more and more an accepted approach in embedded system design. When looking at the modeling of applications in the domain of video, audio, and graphics applications, we notice that they exhibit a high degree of task parallelism and operate on streams of data. Models that we can use to specify such stream-based applications on a high level of abstraction are the dataflow models and process network models. Each of these models has its own merits. Therefore, an alternative approach is to introduce a model of computation that combines the semantics of both models of computation. In this article, we introduce such a model of computation, which we call the Stream-Based Functions (SBF) model of computation and show an example. Furthermore, we discuss the composition and decomposition of SBF objects and put the SBF model of computation in the context of relevant dataflow models and process network models.

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