AN INVESTIGATION INTO PARTITIONING ALGORITHMS FOR AUTOMATIC HETEROGENEOUS COMPILERS

Automatic Heterogeneous Compilers allows blended hardware-software solutions to be explored without the cost of a full-fledged design team, but limited research exists on current partitioning algorithms responsible for separating hardware and software. The purpose of this thesis is to implement various partitioning algorithms onto the same automatic heterogeneous compiler platform to create an apples to apples comparison for AHC partitioning algorithms. Both estimated outcomes and actual outcomes for the solutions generated are studied and scored. The platform used to implement the algorithms is Cal Poly’s own Twill compiler, created by Doug Gallatin last year. Twill’s original partitioning algorithm is chosen along with two other partitioning algorithms: Tabu Search + Simulated Annealing (TSSA) and Genetic Search (GS). These algorithms are implemented inside Twill and test bench input code from the CHStone HLS Benchmark tests is used as stimulus. Along with the algorithms cost models, one key attribute of interest is queue counts generated, as the more cuts between hardware and software requires queues to pass the data between partition crossings. These high communication costs can end up damaging the heterogeneous solution’s performance. The Genetic, TSSA, and Twill’s original partitioning algorithm are all scored against each other’s cost models as well, combining the fitness and performance cost models with queue counts to evaluate each partitioning algorithm. The solutions generated by TSSA are rated as better by both the cost model for the TSSA algorithm and the cost model for the Genetic algorithm while producing low queue counts

A Decompilation Approach to Partitioning Software for Microprocessor/FPGA Platforms

In this paper, we present a software compilation approach for microprocessor/FPGA platforms that partitions a software binary onto custom hardware implemented in the FPGA. Our approach imposes less restrictions on software tool flow than previous compiler approaches, allowing software designers to use any software language and compiler. Our approach uses a back-end partitioning tool that utilizes decompilation techniques to recover important high-level information, resulting in performance comparable to high-level compiler-based approaches