Operation scheduling for parallel functional units using genetic algorithms

• Published in: 1999 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings. ICASSP99 (Cat. No.99CH36258) Vol. 4; pp. 1997 - 2000 vol.4
• Main Authors: Zeitlhofer, T., Wess, B.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1999
• Subjects: Biological cells; Compaction; Constraint optimization; Digital signal processing; Genetic algorithms; Genetic mutations; Modems; Processor scheduling; Registers; VLIW
• ISBN: 0780350413; 9780780350410
• ISSN: 1520-6149
• DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP.1999.758319

We describe a new and efficient approach to solve the scheduling problem for VLIW architectures. The scheduling times of the operations are used as the problems parameters. This in conjunction with a pruning technique based on critical path analysis leads to a significant reduction of search space complexity. A genetic algorithm is used to search for valid schedules of a given length. The genetic algorithm uses a fitness vector that guides the genetic operators crossover and mutation resulting in a fast convergence towards near perfect solutions. The proposed method is also applicable to the problem of register allocation by using a different fitness function. Another advantage of the genetic algorithm approach is that usually a great number of equally performing schedules is obtained allowing for further optimization subject to arbitrary constraints.