Reconfigurable Processor for Binary Image Processing

Abstract

Binary image processing is a powerful tool in many image and video applications. A reconfigurable processor is presented for binary image processing in this paper. The processor’s architecture is a combination of a reconfigurable binary processing module, input and output image control units, and peripheral circuits. The reconfigurable binary processing module, which consists of mixed-grained reconfigurable binary compute units and output control logic, performs binary image processing operations, especially mathematical morphology operations, and implements related algorithms more than 200 f/s for a 1024 ×1024 image. The periphery circuits control the whole image processing and dynamic reconfiguration process. The processor is implemented on an EP2S180 field-programmable gate array. Synthesis results show that the presented processor can deliver 60.72 GOPS and 23.72 GOPS/mm2 at a 220-MHz system clock in the SMIC 0.18-μm CMOS process. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the processor is suitable for real-time binary image processing applications.