Korea Electronics Technology Institute, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Keimyung University, Daegu, Korea.
Technol Health Care. 2020;28(S1):487-497. doi: 10.3233/THC-209049.
Biomedical engineers in particular require fast and powerful data processing systems to process computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scans and other medical imaging technologies. However, current computer data processing technologies are unable to satisfy such requirements. A promising approach to addressing these limitations is processing in memory (PIM). Unfortunately, several issues, such as the compatibility and interconnection of PIM with legacy systems, still remain.
This paper proposes a standard memory bus-based PIM interface for medical image processing and a PIM platform. The proposed PIM interface can overcome problems of compatibility with legacy systems.
We will adapt an embedded system based on a commercial application processor (AP) to a medical image system to verify the functions and the performance of the proposed PIM interface. Using the PIM platform, we apply the proposed PIM interface and the AP to execute an image processing program, measure the image processing times, and compare the results of the measurements.
Experimental results show that while the functions of the proposed PIM interface are normal, the processing time of PIM is more than 81% faster than that of the AP.
The experimental results prove that the proposed PIM interface is able to solve problems of compatibility with legacy systems. We foresee that not only the medical image processing field but also a number of academic fields and professional sectors will use PIM in their data-intensive applications.
生物医学工程师尤其需要快速、强大的数据处理系统来处理计算机断层扫描和磁共振成像扫描以及其他医学成像技术。然而,当前的计算机数据处理技术无法满足这些需求。一种有前途的解决方法是在内存中进行处理(PIM)。不幸的是,仍存在一些问题,例如 PIM 与传统系统的兼容性和互连性。
本文提出了一种基于标准内存总线的用于医学图像处理的 PIM 接口和 PIM 平台。所提出的 PIM 接口可以克服与传统系统兼容性的问题。
我们将基于商用应用处理器(AP)的嵌入式系统适应于医学图像系统,以验证所提出的 PIM 接口的功能和性能。使用 PIM 平台,我们应用所提出的 PIM 接口和 AP 来执行图像处理程序,测量图像处理时间,并比较测量结果。
实验结果表明,虽然所提出的 PIM 接口的功能正常,但 PIM 的处理时间比 AP 快 81%以上。
实验结果证明,所提出的 PIM 接口能够解决与传统系统兼容性的问题。我们预计,不仅医学图像处理领域,而且许多学术领域和专业领域都将在其数据密集型应用中使用 PIM。