Dataflow Interchange Format Version 0.2

Abstract

The Dataflow Interchange Format (DIF) is a standard language to specify mixed-grain dataflow models for digital signal, image, and video processing (DSP) systems and other streaming-related application domains. Major objectives of the DIF project are to design this standard language; to provide an extensible repository for representing, experimenting, and developing dataflow models and techniques; and to facilitate technology transfer of applications across DSP design tools. The first version of DIF has demonstrated significant progress towards these goals. The subsequent phase of the DIF project, which we discuss in this report, is focusing on improving the DIF language and the DIF package to represent more sophisticated dataflow semantics and exploring the capability of DIF in transferring DSP applications and technology. This exploration has resulted so far in an approach to automate exporting and importing processes and a novel solution to porting DSP applications through DIF. This report introduces the DIF language version 0.2 along with the DIF package, the supported dataflow models, the approach to exporting and importing, and the newly proposed porting mechanism.