PIPELINE ACCELERATOR HAVING MULTIPLE PIPELINE UNITS AND RELATED COMPUTING MACHINE AND METHOD

摘要

A pipeline accelerator includes a bus and a plurality of pipeline units, eac h unit coupled to the bus and including at least one respective hardwired- pipeline circuit. By including a plurality of pipeline units in the pipeline accelerator, one can increase the accelerator's data-processing performance as compared to a single-pipeline-unit accelerator. Furthermore, by designing th e pipeline units so that they communicate via a common bus, one can alter the number of pipeline units, and thus alter the configuration and functionality of the accelerator, by merely coupling or uncoupling pipeline units to or fr om the bus. This eliminates the need to design or redesign the pipeline-unit interfaces each time one alters one of the pipeline units or alters the numb er of pipeline units within the accelerator.