456 research outputs found
Modeling and exploration of a reconfigurable architecture for digital holographic imaging
The use of coarse-grain reconfigurable architectures (CGRA) is a suitable alternative for hardware acceleration in many application areas, including digital holographic imaging. In this paper, we propose a CGRA-based system with an array of processing and memory cells, which communicate using a local and a global communication network, and a stream memory controller to manage data transfers to external memory. We present our SystemC-based exploration environment (SCENIC) and methodology used to construct and evaluate systems containing reconfigurable architectures. A case study illustrates the advantages with rapid system level exploration to find and solve bottlenecks in complex designs prior to RTL description
System level modeling of dynamic reconfigurable system-on-chip
In this paper methods of dynamically reconfigurable multi-core System-on-chip (SoC) design are discussed, the approaches of system modeling for evaluation of these systems are presented. The dynamically reconfigurable SoC can be developed using the FPGA and the ASIC technologies. The implementations of dynamic reconfiguration using these approaches are essentially different. The system level modeling is used to evaluate the performance of dynamically reconfigured systems in the early stage of their development. The models of dynamically reconfigurable systems have very significant differences from the models of systems without a dynamical reconfiguration. The development of such models may require extensions of existing tools and specification of mechanisms functionality. In this paper the existing tools for SoC system design and the requirements for it to allow modeling of reconfigurable systems are considered. We propose mechanisms for system level modeling of the dynamically reconfigurable Networks-on-Chip (NoC) implemented on the ASIC technology
Functional Validation of AADL Models via Model Transformation to SystemC with ATL
6 pagesInternational audienceIn this paper, we put into action an ATL model transformation in order to automatically generate SystemC models from AADL models. The AADL models represent electronic systems to be embedded into FPGAs. Our contribution allows for an early analytical estimation of energetic needs and a rapid SystemC simulation before implementation. The transformation has been tested to simulate an existing video image processing system embedded into a Xilinx Virtex5 FPGA
Intelligent Embedded Software: New Perspectives and Challenges
Intelligent embedded systems (IES) represent a novel and promising generation of embedded systems (ES). IES have the capacity of reasoning about their external environments and adapt their behavior accordingly. Such systems are situated in the intersection of two different branches that are the embedded computing and the intelligent computing. On the other hand, intelligent embedded software (IESo) is becoming a large part of the engineering cost of intelligent embedded systems. IESo can include some artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems such as expert systems, neural networks and other sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) models to guarantee some important characteristics such as self-learning, self-optimizing and self-repairing. Despite the widespread of such systems, some design challenging issues are arising. Designing a resource-constrained software and at the same time intelligent is not a trivial task especially in a real-time context. To deal with this dilemma, embedded system researchers have profited from the progress in semiconductor technology to develop specific hardware to support well AI models and render the integration of AI with the embedded world a reality
Multi-core architectures with coarse-grained dynamically reconfigurable processors for broadband wireless access technologies
Broadband Wireless Access technologies have significant market potential, especially the
WiMAX protocol which can deliver data rates of tens of Mbps. Strong demand for high
performance WiMAX solutions is forcing designers to seek help from multi-core processors
that offer competitive advantages in terms of all performance metrics, such as speed, power
and area. Through the provision of a degree of flexibility similar to that of a DSP and
performance and power consumption advantages approaching that of an ASIC,
coarse-grained dynamically reconfigurable processors are proving to be strong candidates
for processing cores used in future high performance multi-core processor systems.
This thesis investigates multi-core architectures with a newly emerging dynamically
reconfigurable processor – RICA, targeting WiMAX physical layer applications. A novel
master-slave multi-core architecture is proposed, using RICA processing cores. A SystemC
based simulator, called MRPSIM, is devised to model this multi-core architecture. This
simulator provides fast simulation speed and timing accuracy, offers flexible architectural
options to configure the multi-core architecture, and enables the analysis and investigation
of multi-core architectures. Meanwhile a profiling-driven mapping methodology is
developed to partition the WiMAX application into multiple tasks as well as schedule and
map these tasks onto the multi-core architecture, aiming to reduce the overall system
execution time. Both the MRPSIM simulator and the mapping methodology are seamlessly
integrated with the existing RICA tool flow.
Based on the proposed master-slave multi-core architecture, a series of diverse
homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core solutions are designed for different fixed
WiMAX physical layer profiles. Implemented in ANSI C and executed on the MRPSIM
simulator, these multi-core solutions contain different numbers of cores, combine various memory architectures and task partitioning schemes, and deliver high throughputs at
relatively low area costs. Meanwhile a design space exploration methodology is developed
to search the design space for multi-core systems to find suitable solutions under certain
system constraints. Finally, laying a foundation for future multithreading exploration on the
proposed multi-core architecture, this thesis investigates the porting of a real-time operating
system – Micro C/OS-II to a single RICA processor. A multitasking version of WiMAX is
implemented on a single RICA processor with the operating system support
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