Significant papers from the First 25 Years of the FPL Conference

The list of significant papers from the first 25 years of the Field-Programmable Logic and Applications conference (FPL) is presented in this paper. These 27 papers represent those which have most strongly influenced theory and practice in the field.postprin

RTRLIB : a high-level modeling tool for dynamically partially reconfigurable systems

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, 2020.Reconfiguração dinâmica parcial é considerada uma interessante técnica a ser aplicada para o aumento da flexibilidade de sistemas implementados em FPGA, em função da implementação dinâmica de módulos de hardware enquanto o restante do circuito permanece em operação. Trata- se de uma técnica utilizada em sistemas com requisitos muito restritos, como adaptabilidade, robustez, consumo de potência, custo e tolerância à falhas. Entretanto, a complexidade de desen- volvimento de sistemas com reconfiguração dinâmica parcial é consideravelmente alta quando comparada à de sistemas com lógica totalmente estática. Nesse sentido, novas metodologias e ferramentas de desenvolvimento são necessárias para reduzir a complexidade de implementação desse tipo de sistema. Nesse contexto, esse trabalho apresenta o RTRLib, uma ferramenta de modelagem em alto nível para o desenvolvimento de sistemas com reconfiguração dinâmica parcial em dispositivos Xilinx Zynq a partir da especificação e parametrização de alguns blocos. Sob condições específi- cas, o RTRLib automaticamante produz os scripts de hardware e software para implementação da solução utilizando o Vivado Design Suite e o SDK. Tais scripts são compostos pelos comandos necessários para a implementação do sistema desde a criação do projeto de hardware até a criação do arquivo de boot. Uma vez que o RTRLib é composto por IP-Cores previamente caracterizados, a ferramenta também pode ser utilizada para a análise, em fase de modelagem, do sistema a ser implementado, por meio da estimação de características importantes do sistema, como o consumo de recursos e latência. O presente trabalho também inclui novas funcionalidades implementadas no RTRLib no con- texto do design de hardware e de software, como: generalização do script de hardware, mapea- mento de IO, floorplanning por meio de uma GUI, criação de um gerador de script de software, gerador de template de aplicação standalone que faz uso do partial reconfiguration controller (PRC) e implementação de uma biblioteca para aplicações FreeRTOS. Por fim, quatro estudos de casos foram implementados para demonstrar as funcionalidades da ferramenta: um sistema de classificação de terrenos baseado em redes neurais, um sistema com regressores lineares utilizado para controle de uma prótese miocinética de mão e, por último, uma aplicação hipotética de um sistema com requisitos de tempo real.Partial dynamic reconfiguration is considered an interesting technique to increase flexibility in FPGA designs due to the dynamic replacement of hardware modules while the remainder of the circuit remains in operation. It is used in systems with hard requirements such as adaptability, robustness, power consumption, cost, and fault-tolerance. However, the complexity to develop dynamically partially reconfigurable systems in considerably higher comparing with static de- signs. Therefore, new design methodologies and tools have been required to reduce the design complexity of such systems. In this context, this work presents the RTRLib, a high-level modeling tool for the development of dynamically reconfigurable systems on Xilinx Zynq devices by a simple system specification and parametrization of some blocks. Under specific conditions, RTRLib automatically generates the hardware and software scripts to implement the solution using Vivado and SDK. These scripts are composed by the sequential design steps from hardware project creation to the boot image elaboration. Since RTRLib is composed of pre-characterized IP-Cores, the tool also can be used to analyze the system behavior during the design process by the early estimation of essential characteristics of the system such as resource consumption and latency. The present work also includes the new functionalities implemented on RTRLib in the context of the hardware and the software design, such as: hardware script generalization, IO mapping, floorplanning by a GUI, software script creation, generator of a standalone template application that uses PRC, and implementation of a FreeRTOS library application. Finally, four case studies were implemented to demonstrate the tool capability: a system for terrain classification based on neuron networks, a linear regressor system used to control a myokinetic-based prosthetic hand, and a hypothetical real-time application

Run-Time Reconfiguration for HyperTransport coupled FPGAs using ACCFS

In this paper we present a solution where only one FPGA is needed in a host coupled system, in which the FPGA can be reconfigured by a user application during run-time without loosing the host link connection. A hardware infrastructure on the FPGA and the software framework ACCFS (ACCelerator File System) on the host system is provided to the user which allow easy handling of reconfiguration and communication between the host and the FPGA. Such a system can be used for offloading compute kernels on the FPGA in high performance computing or exchanging functionality in highly available systems during run-time without loosing the host link during reconfiguration. The implementation was done for a HyperTransport coupled FPGA. The design of a HyperTransport cave was extended in such a way that it provides an infrastructure for run-time reconfigurable (RTR) modules

Dynamic management of multikernel multithread accelerators using dynamic partial reconfiguration

Ever demanding systems with restricted resources face increasingly complex applications. Additionally, changeable environments modify working conditions over time. Therefore, a dynamic resource management is required in order to provide adaptation capabilities. By using ARTICo3, a bus-based architecture with reconfigurable slots, this adaptation is accomplished in three different but dependent areas: Consumption, Confidentiality and fault tolerance, and Computation. The proposed resource management strategies rely on an architecture and a model of computation that make execution configuration to be application-independent, but context-aware, since a CUDA-like execution model is used. The inherent and explicit application-level parallelism of multithreaded CUDA kernels is used to generate hardware accelerators that act as thread blocks. Despite other modes of operation provided by the ARTICo3 architecture, like module redundancy or dual-rail operation to mitigate Side-Channel Attacks, these thread blocks are dynamically managed and their execution is scheduled using a multiobjective optimization algorithm

Operating System Concepts for Reconfigurable Computing: Review and Survey

One of the key future challenges for reconfigurable computing is to enable higher design productivity and a more easy way to use reconfigurable computing systems for users that are unfamiliar with the underlying concepts. One way of doing this is to provide standardization and abstraction, usually supported and enforced by an operating system. This article gives historical review and a summary on ideas and key concepts to include reconfigurable computing aspects in operating systems. The article also presents an overview on published and available operating systems targeting the area of reconfigurable computing. The purpose of this article is to identify and summarize common patterns among those systems that can be seen as de facto standard. Furthermore, open problems, not covered by these already available systems, are identified

Reconfigurable computing for network function virtualization: A protocol independent switch

Network function virtualization (NFV) aims to decouple software network applications from their hardware in order to reduce development and deployment costs for new services. To enable the deployment of diverse network services, a reconfigurable and high performance hardware platform can bring considerable benefits to NFV. In this paper, an FPGA-based platform is proposed to perform as a protocol reconfigurable NFV switch. Logic circuit of virtual network functions can be reconfigured at run time on the proposed platform. A reconfiguration process is also proposed to enable packet loss free switch-over between virtual network functions that delivers undisrupted service. The platform can be reconfigured between Layer 1 circuit switch and Layer 2 Ethernet packet switch. Once running as a packet switch, the platform can switch over from Layer 2 Ethernet switch to Layer 3 IP parser and even Layer 4 UDP parser. Performance of the implemented 2×2 switch at 10Gbps per port delivers a minimum latency of 300 nanoseconds (circuit switch) and maximum latency of 1 microsecond. Reconfiguration between IP and UDP parser without loss of data is also demonstrated