MORA - an architecture and programming model for a resource efficient coarse grained reconfigurable processor

This paper presents an architecture and implementation details for MORA, a novel coarse grained reconfigurable processor for accelerating media processing applications. The MORA architecture involves a 2-D array of several such processors, to deliver low cost, high throughput performance in media processing applications. A distinguishing feature of the MORA architecture is the co-design of hardware architecture and low-level programming language throughout the design cycle. The implementation details for the single MORA processor, and benchmark evaluation using a cycle accurate simulator are presented

The finite element machine: An experiment in parallel processing

The finite element machine is a prototype computer designed to support parallel solutions to structural analysis problems. The hardware architecture and support software for the machine, initial solution algorithms and test applications, and preliminary results are described

Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Reconfigurable Communication-centric Systems on Chip 2010 - ReCoSoC\u2710 - May 17-19, 2010 Karlsruhe, Germany. (KIT Scientific Reports ; 7551)

ReCoSoC is intended to be a periodic annual meeting to expose and discuss gathered expertise as well as state of the art research around SoC related topics through plenary invited papers and posters. The workshop aims to provide a prospective view of tomorrow\u27s challenges in the multibillion transistor era, taking into account the emerging techniques and architectures exploring the synergy between flexible on-chip communication and system reconfigurability

A bibliography on parallel and vector numerical algorithms

This is a bibliography of numerical methods. It also includes a number of other references on machine architecture, programming language, and other topics of interest to scientific computing. Certain conference proceedings and anthologies which have been published in book form are listed also

Reconfigurable Shift Switching Parallel Comparators

We present novel asynchronous VLSI comparator schemes which are based on recently proposed reconfigurable shift switch logic and the traditional (precharged) CMOS domino logic. The schemes always produce a semaphore as a by-product of the process to indicate the end of domino process, which requires no additional delay and a minimal number of additional devices. For a large percentage of inputs the computations are much faster than traditional synchronous comparators due to the full utilization of the inherent speed of the circuits. Also the schemes are simple, area compact and stable

Design and Analysis of Optical Interconnection Networks for Parallel Computation.

In this doctoral research, we propose several novel protocols and topologies for the interconnection of massively parallel processors. These new technologies achieve considerable improvements in system performance and structure simplicity. Currently, synchronous protocols are used in optical TDM buses. The major disadvantage of a synchronous protocol is the waste of packet slots. To offset this inherent drawback of synchronous TDM, a pipelined asynchronous TDM optical bus is proposed. The simulation results show that the performance of the proposed bus is significantly better than that of known pipelined synchronous TDM optical buses. Practically, the computation power of the plain TDM protocol is limited. Various extensions must be added to the system. In this research, a new pipelined optical TDM bus for implementing a linear array parallel computer architecture is proposed. The switches on the receiving segment of the bus can be dynamically controlled, which make the system highly reconfigurable. To build large and scalable systems, we need new network architectures that are suitable for optical interconnections. A new kind of reconfigurable bus called segmented bus is introduced to achieve reduced structure simplicity and increased concurrency. We show that parallel architectures based on segmented buses are versatile by showing that it can simulate parallel communication patterns supported by a wide variety of networks with small slowdown factors. New kinds of interconnection networks, the hypernetworks, have been proposed recently. Compared with point-to-point networks, they allow for increased resource-sharing and communication bandwidth utilization, and they are especially suitable for optical interconnects. One way to derive a hypernetwork is by finding the dual of a point-to-point network. Hypercube Q\sb{n}, where n is the dimension, is a very popular point-to-point network. It is interesting to construct hypernetworks from the dual Q\sbsp{n}{*} of hypercube of Q\sb{n}. In this research, the properties of Q\sbsp{n}{*} are investigated and a set of fundamental data communication algorithms for Q\sbsp{n}{*} are presented. The results indicate that the Q\sbsp{n}{*} hypernetwork is a useful and promising interconnection structure for high-performance parallel and distributed computing systems

Mixing multi-core CPUs and GPUs for scientific simulation software

Recent technological and economic developments have led to widespread availability of multi-core CPUs and specialist accelerator processors such as graphical processing units (GPUs). The accelerated computational performance possible from these devices can be very high for some applications paradigms. Software languages and systems such as NVIDIA's CUDA and Khronos consortium's open compute language (OpenCL) support a number of individual parallel application programming paradigms. To scale up the performance of some complex systems simulations, a hybrid of multi-core CPUs for coarse-grained parallelism and very many core GPUs for data parallelism is necessary. We describe our use of hybrid applica- tions using threading approaches and multi-core CPUs to control independent GPU devices. We present speed-up data and discuss multi-threading software issues for the applications level programmer and o er some suggested areas for language development and integration between coarse-grained and ne-grained multi-thread systems. We discuss results from three common simulation algorithmic areas including: partial di erential equations; graph cluster metric calculations and random number generation. We report on programming experiences and selected performance for these algorithms on: single and multiple GPUs; multi-core CPUs; a CellBE; and using OpenCL. We discuss programmer usability issues and the outlook and trends in multi-core programming for scienti c applications developers

Circuit design and analysis for on-FPGA communication systems

On-chip communication system has emerged as a prominently important subject in Very-Large- Scale-Integration (VLSI) design, as the trend of technology scaling favours logics more than interconnects. Interconnects often dictates the system performance, and, therefore, research for new methodologies and system architectures that deliver high-performance communication services across the chip is mandatory. The interconnect challenge is exacerbated in Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), as a type of ASIC where the hardware can be programmed post-fabrication. Communication across an FPGA will be deteriorating as a result of interconnect scaling. The programmable fabrics, switches and the specific routing architecture also introduce additional latency and bandwidth degradation further hindering intra-chip communication performance. Past research efforts mainly focused on optimizing logic elements and functional units in FPGAs. Communication with programmable interconnect received little attention and is inadequately understood. This thesis is among the first to research on-chip communication systems that are built on top of programmable fabrics and proposes methodologies to maximize the interconnect throughput performance. There are three major contributions in this thesis: (i) an analysis of on-chip interconnect fringing, which degrades the bandwidth of communication channels due to routing congestions in reconfigurable architectures; (ii) a new analogue wave signalling scheme that significantly improves the interconnect throughput by exploiting the fundamental electrical characteristics of the reconfigurable interconnect structures. This new scheme can potentially mitigate the interconnect scaling challenges. (iii) a novel Dynamic Programming (DP)-network to provide adaptive routing in network-on-chip (NoC) systems. The DP-network architecture performs runtime optimization for route planning and dynamic routing which, effectively utilizes the in-silicon bandwidth. This thesis explores a new horizon in reconfigurable system design, in which new methodologies and concepts are proposed to enhance the on-FPGA communication throughput performance that is of vital importance in new technology processes