FPGA Based Hardware Co-Simulation of an Area and Power Efficient FIR Filter for Wireless Communication Systems

“In this paper FPGA based hardware co-simulation of an area and power efficient FIR filter for wireless communication systems is presented. The implementation is based on distributed arithmetic (DA) which substitutes multiply-and-accumulate operations with look up table (LUT) accesses. Parallel Distributed arithmetic (PDA) look up table approach is used to implement an FIR Filter taking optimal advantage of the look up table structure of FPGA using VHDL. The proposed design is hardware co-simulated using System Generator10.1, synthesized with Xilinx ISE 10.1 software, and implemented on Virtex-4 based xc4vlx25-10ff668 target device. Results show that the proposed design operates at 17.5 MHz throughput and consumes 0.468W power with considerable reduction in required resources to implement the design as compared to Coregen and add/shift based design styles. Due to this reduction in required resources the proposed design can also be implemented on Spartan-3 FPGA device to provide cost effective solution for DSP and wireless communication applications.

Process algebra modelling styles for biomolecular processes

We investigate how biomolecular processes are modelled in process algebras, focussing on chemical reactions. We consider various modelling styles and how design decisions made in the definition of the process algebra have an impact on how a modelling style can be applied. Our goal is to highlight the often implicit choices that modellers make in choosing a formalism, and illustrate, through the use of examples, how this can affect expressability as well as the type and complexity of the analysis that can be performed

Scalable data abstractions for distributed parallel computations

The ability to express a program as a hierarchical composition of parts is an essential tool in managing the complexity of software and a key abstraction this provides is to separate the representation of data from the computation. Many current parallel programming models use a shared memory model to provide data abstraction but this doesn't scale well with large numbers of cores due to non-determinism and access latency. This paper proposes a simple programming model that allows scalable parallel programs to be expressed with distributed representations of data and it provides the programmer with the flexibility to employ shared or distributed styles of data-parallelism where applicable. It is capable of an efficient implementation, and with the provision of a small set of primitive capabilities in the hardware, it can be compiled to operate directly on the hardware, in the same way stack-based allocation operates for subroutines in sequential machines

Chippe : a system for constraint driven behavioral synthesis

This report describes the Chippe system, gives some background previous work and describes several sample design runs of the system. Also presented are the sources of the design tradeoffs used by Chippe, and overview of the internal design model, and experiences using the system

Silicon compilation

Silicon compilation is a term used for many different purposes. In this paper we define silicon compilation as a mapping from some higher level description into layout. We define the basic issues in structural and behavioral silicon compilation and some possible solutions to those issues. Finally, we define the concept of an intelligent silicon compiler in which the compiler evaluates the quality of the generated design and attempts to improve it if it is not satisfactory

Challenging the Computational Metaphor: Implications for How We Think

This paper explores the role of the traditional computational metaphor in our thinking as computer scientists, its influence on epistemological styles, and its implications for our understanding of cognition. It proposes to replace the conventional metaphor--a sequence of steps--with the notion of a community of interacting entities, and examines the ramifications of such a shift on these various ways in which we think