SMASH: A heuristic methodology for designing partially reconfigurable MPSoCs

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A flexible interconnection structure for reconfigurable FPGA dataflow applications

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FASTER: Facilitating Analysis and Synthesis Technologies for Effective Reconfiguration

The FASTER (Facilitating Analysis and Synthesis Technologies for Effective Reconfiguration) EU FP7 project, aims to ease the design and implementation of dynamically changing hardware systems. Our motivation stems from the promise reconfigurable systems hold for achieving high performance and extending product functionality and lifetime via the addition of new features that operate at hardware speed. However, designing a changing hardware system is both challenging and time-consuming. FASTER facilitates the use of reconfigurable technology by providing a complete methodology enabling designers to easily specify, analyze, implement and verify applications on platforms with general-purpose processors and acceleration modules implemented in the latest reconfigurable technology. Our tool-chain supports both coarse- and fine-grain FPGA reconfiguration, while during execution a flexible run-time system manages the reconfigurable resources. We target three applications from different domains. We explore the way each application benefits from reconfiguration, and then we asses them and the FASTER tools, in terms of performance, area consumption and accuracy of analysis

Measurement of the Positive Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment to 0.46 ppm

We present the first results of the Fermilab Muon g-2 Experiment for the positive muon magnetic anomaly $a_\mu \equiv (g_\mu-2)/2$. The anomaly is determined from the precision measurements of two angular frequencies. Intensity variation of high-energy positrons from muon decays directly encodes the difference frequency $\omega_a$ between the spin-precession and cyclotron frequencies for polarized muons in a magnetic storage ring. The storage ring magnetic field is measured using nuclear magnetic resonance probes calibrated in terms of the equivalent proton spin precession frequency ${\tilde{\omega}'^{}_p}$ in a spherical water sample at 34.7$^{\circ}$C. The ratio $\omega_a / {\tilde{\omega}'^{}_p}$, together with known fundamental constants, determines $a_\mu({\rm FNAL}) = 116\,592\,040(54)\times 10^{-11}$ (0.46\,ppm). The result is 3.3 standard deviations greater than the standard model prediction and is in excellent agreement with the previous Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) E821 measurement. After combination with previous measurements of both $\mu^+$ and $\mu^-$, the new experimental average of $a_\mu({\rm Exp}) = 116\,592\,061(41)\times 10^{-11}$ (0.35\,ppm) increases the tension between experiment and theory to 4.2 standard deviationsComment: 10 pages; 4 figure

Effective reconfigurable design: The FASTER approach

While fine-grain, reconfigurable devices have been available for years, they are mostly used in a fixed functionality, "asic-replacement" manner. To exploit opportunities for flexible and adaptable run-time exploitation of fine grain reconfigurable resources (as implemented currently in dynamic, partial reconfiguration), better tool support is needed. The FASTER project aims to provide a methodology and a tool-chain that will enable designers to efficiently implement a reconfigurable system on a platform combining software and reconfigurable resources. Starting from a high-level application description and a target platform, our tools analyse the application, evaluate reconfiguration options, and implement the designer choices on underlying vendor tools. In addition, FASTER addresses micro-reconfiguration, verification, and the run-time management of system resources. We use industrial applications to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and identify new opportunities for reconfigurable technologies. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland