Bridging Python to Silicon: The SODA Toolchain

Systems performing scientific computing, data analysis, and machine learning tasks have a growing demand for application-specific accelerators that can provide high computational performance while meeting strict size and power requirements. However, the algorithms and applications that need to be accelerated are evolving at a rate that is incompatible with manual design processes based on hardware description languages. Agile hardware design tools based on compiler techniques can help by quickly producing an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) accelerator starting from a high-level algorithmic description. We present the SODA Synthesizer, a modular and open-source hardware compiler that provides automated end-to-end synthesis from high-level software frameworks to ASIC implementation, relying on multi-level representations to progressively lower and optimize the input code. Our approach does not require the application developer to write register-transfer level code, and it is able to reach up to 364 GFLOPS/W efficiency (32-bit precision) on typical convolutional neural network operators

Temporal Performance Analysis of Bus Transportation Using Link Streams

Performance analysis of transport systems usually requires transfer of passengers between trains, cars, or buses, among others. This paper proposes a methodology for modeling and analysis of bus transportation using link streams. Link streams are particular cases of stream graphs whose cliques provide information about available time intervals for connecting buses. These cliques are obtained by algorithms of the literature with good scalability. They are used to quantify performance indicators as transfer time, bunching, congestion, and number of transferred passengers. The results are obtained for real-world data of a bus terminal in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. They reveal important issues regarding transfer delays and available capacity for transport. The proposed performance analysis can be used to support urban planners on planning and improving transport operation