1,040 research outputs found
Generic Connectivity-Based CGRA Mapping via Integer Linear Programming
Coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures (CGRAs) are programmable logic
devices with large coarse-grained ALU-like logic blocks, and multi-bit
datapath-style routing. CGRAs often have relatively restricted data routing
networks, so they attract CAD mapping tools that use exact methods, such as
Integer Linear Programming (ILP). However, tools that target general
architectures must use large constraint systems to fully describe an
architecture's flexibility, resulting in lengthy run-times. In this paper, we
propose to derive connectivity information from an otherwise generic device
model, and use this to create simpler ILPs, which we combine in an iterative
schedule and retain most of the exactness of a fully-generic ILP approach. This
new approach has a speed-up geometric mean of 5.88x when considering benchmarks
that do not hit a time-limit of 7.5 hours on the fully-generic ILP, and 37.6x
otherwise. This was measured using the set of benchmarks used to originally
evaluate the fully-generic approach and several more benchmarks representing
computation tasks, over three different CGRA architectures. All run-times of
the new approach are less than 20 minutes, with 90th percentile time of 410
seconds. The proposed mapping techniques are integrated into, and evaluated
using the open-source CGRA-ME architecture modelling and exploration framework.Comment: 8 pages of content; 8 figures; 3 tables; to appear in FCCM 2019; Uses
the CGRA-ME framework at http://cgra-me.ece.utoronto.ca
The Design of a System Architecture for Mobile Multimedia Computers
This chapter discusses the system architecture of a portable computer, called Mobile Digital Companion, which provides support for handling multimedia applications energy efficiently. Because battery life is limited and battery weight is an important factor for the size and the weight of the Mobile Digital Companion, energy management plays a crucial role in the architecture. As the Companion must remain usable in a variety of environments, it has to be flexible and adaptable to various operating conditions. The Mobile Digital Companion has an unconventional architecture that saves energy by using system decomposition at different levels of the architecture and exploits locality of reference with dedicated, optimised modules. The approach is based on dedicated functionality and the extensive use of energy reduction techniques at all levels of system design. The system has an architecture with a general-purpose processor accompanied by a set of heterogeneous autonomous programmable modules, each providing an energy efficient implementation of dedicated tasks. A reconfigurable internal communication network switch exploits locality of reference and eliminates wasteful data copies
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