VLSI architecture design approaches for real-time video processing

This paper discusses the programmable and dedicated approaches for real-time video processing applications. Various VLSI architecture including the design examples of both approaches are reviewed. Finally, discussions of several practical designs in real-time video processing applications are then considered in VLSI architectures to provide significant guidelines to VLSI designers for any further real-time video processing design works

Advanced flight computer. Special study

This report documents a special study to define a 32-bit radiation hardened, SEU tolerant flight computer architecture, and to investigate current or near-term technologies and development efforts that contribute to the Advanced Flight Computer (AFC) design and development. An AFC processing node architecture is defined. Each node may consist of a multi-chip processor as needed. The modular, building block approach uses VLSI technology and packaging methods that demonstrate a feasible AFC module in 1998 that meets that AFC goals. The defined architecture and approach demonstrate a clear low-risk, low-cost path to the 1998 production goal, with intermediate prototypes in 1996

A novel partial reconfiguration methodology for FPGAs of multichip systems

A number of SRAM-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) allow for partial reconfiguration (PR). Partial reconfiguration can be used to maximize the resource utilization in these FPGAs. Any large design usually consists of many modular features that are never used all concurrently. An FPGA does not need to implement all these features at the same time provided that it can be reconfigured in a reasonable amount of time to implement the features that can be used simultaneously. The use of partial reconfiguration is ideal in this case, since it allows for just the features that are no longer needed to be replaced by the newly required features. Current methodologies use both external and self partial reconfiguration for this purpose. On mature multichip (MC) systems that have not made use of the PR features of their SRAM-based FPGA(s), however, these methodologies would require changes in the existing FPGA configuration protocol and/or associated hardware outside the array. This thesis presents a novel methodology that makes PR features available to these systems for the purpose of maximizing their FPGA resources without the modifications required by the current methodologies. The proposed methodology reuses an existing data interface to send the PR data to the array and directs this data to the FPGA’s internal configuration port. A prototype of this methodology is demonstrated on a commercial color space conversion (CSC) engine design using two Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is quantified by comparing the FPGA resource utilization of the original CSC engine design and that of the partial reconfigurable prototype above. Finally, since the application of partial reconfiguration inherently adds latency to the output of any design, the effects of the proposed methodology on the performance of the CSC engine are also studied and reported. This information will show that reconfiguring and loading the prototyped CSC engine in addition to processing a full image in it takes 683ms, which is within the target of one second

Intelligent Reconfigurable Integrated Satellite Processor

We present our Intelligent Reconfigurable Integrated Satellite (IRIS) Processor. At the heart of the system are our reconfigurable vision chips which are capable of massively parallel analog processing. The smart vision chips are capable of not only centroiding and pattern recognition but also tracking and controlling devices including MEMs devices and active pixel arrays. In addition to discussing the active optic and active electronic devices, several small satellite system applications are presented along with experimental and simulation results

A survey of network-based hardware accelerators

Many practical data-processing algorithms fail to execute efficiently on general-purpose CPUs (Central Processing Units) due to the sequential matter of their operations and memory bandwidth limitations. To achieve desired performance levels, reconfigurable (FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array)-based) hardware accelerators are frequently explored that permit the processing units’ architectures to be better adapted to the specific problem/algorithm requirements. In particular, network-based data-processing algorithms are very well suited to implementation in reconfigurable hardware because several data-independent operations can easily and naturally be executed in parallel over as many processing blocks as actually required and technically possible. GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) have also demonstrated good results in this area but they tend to use significantly more power than FPGA, which could be a limiting factor in embedded applications. Moreover, GPUs employ a Single Instruction, Multiple Threads (SIMT) execution model and are therefore optimized to SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) operations, while in FPGAs fully custom datapaths can be built, eliminating much of the control overhead. This review paper aims to analyze, compare, and discuss different approaches to implementing network-based hardware accelerators in FPGA and programmable SoC (Systems-on-Chip). The performed analysis and the derived recommendations would be useful to hardware designers of future network-based hardware accelerators.publishe

Design and Performance Evaluation of an Intelligent Star Tracker

Current state-of-the-art commercial star sensors typically weigh 15 pounds, attain 5 to 10 arcsecond accuracy, and use roughly 10 watts of power. Unfortunately, the current state-of-the-art commercial star sensors do not meet many of NASA’s “next-generation” spacecraft and instrument needs. Nor do they satisfy Air Force’s needs for micro/nano-satellite systems. In an effort to satisfy micro/nano satellite mission needs the Air Force Research Laboratory is developing an intelligent star Tracker, called IntelliStar, which incorporates several novel technologies including Silicon carbide optical housing, MEMs based adaptive optic technologies, smart active pixels, and algebraic coding theory. The design considerations associated with the development of the IntelliStar system are presented along with experimental results which characterize each technologies contribution to overall system performance. In addition to being light weight, the IntelliStar System offers advantages in speed, size, power consumption, and radiation tolerance