Signal--A data flow-oriented language for signal processing

Abstract

We present the language SIGNAL which is a data flow-oriented real-time, synchronous, side effect-free language suited to the expression and recovery of the parallelism in signal or image processing algorithms. The language is intended to be, at the same time, an executable simulation language, and a specification of a virtual machine implementing the algorithm. The language is semantically sound, and is suitable to perform program transforms-a major requirement when the ultimate goal is an aid to the architecture design.