Performance engineering for HEVC transform and quantization kernel on GPUs

Continuous growth of video traffic and video services, especially in the field of high resolution and high-quality video content, places heavy demands on video coding and its implementations. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard doubles the compression efficiency of its predecessor H.264/AVC at the cost of high computational complexity. To address those computing issues high-performance video processing takes advantage of heterogeneous multiprocessor platforms. In this paper, we present a highly performance-optimized HEVC transform and quantization kernel with all-zero-block (AZB) identification designed for execution on a Graphics Processor Unit (GPU). Performance optimization strategy involved all three aspects of parallel design, exposing as much of the application’s intrinsic parallelism as possible, exploitation of high throughput memory and efficient instruction usage. It combines efficient mapping of transform blocks to thread-blocks and efficient vectorized access patterns to shared memory for all transform sizes supported in the standard. Two different GPUs of the same architecture were used to evaluate proposed implementation. Achieved processing times are 6.03 and 23.94 ms for DCI 4K and 8K Full Format, respectively. Speedup factors compared to CPU, cuBLAS and AVX2 implementations are up to 80, 19 and 4 times respectively. Proposed implementation outperforms previous work 1.22 times

Exploring manycore architectures for next-generation HPC systems through the MANGO approach

[EN] The Horizon 2020 MANGO project aims at exploring deeply heterogeneous accelerators for use in High-Performance Computing systems running multiple applications with different Quality of Service (QoS) levels. The main goal of the project is to exploit customization to adapt computing resources to reach the desired QoS. For this purpose, it explores different but interrelated mechanisms across the architecture and system software. In particular, in this paper we focus on the runtime resource management, the thermal management, and support provided for parallel programming, as well as introducing three applications on which the project foreground will be validated.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 671668.Flich Cardo, J.; Agosta, G.; Ampletzer, P.; Atienza-Alonso, D.; Brandolese, C.; Cappe, E.; Cilardo, A.... (2018). Exploring manycore architectures for next-generation HPC systems through the MANGO approach. Microprocessors and Microsystems. 61:154-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2018.05.011S1541706

Implementation and optimization of FRISC based system

U ovom radu proučava se logika sustava procesora FRISC. Razmatraju se karakteristike ovog procesora te se opisuje postojeća verzija dizajna izvedenog na FPGA sklopu. Na osnovu opisa postojećeg dizajna razrađuju se ideje za daljnji razvoj i optimizaciju s naglaskom na protočnoj strukturi upravljačke jedinice. Predočavaju se nedostaci sustava koji ograničavaju mogućnosti njegova rada i prikazuje se tok izvedbe novog dizajna. U sustav procesora FRISC se dodaje nova vanjska jedinica koja predstavlja sučelje s LCD zaslonom te se prikazuje izvedba upravljačkog programa u asemblerskom jeziku FRISC procesora koji omogućava crtanje osnovnih grafičkih primitiva i znakova.This paper examines the logic of FRISC based system. Main characteristics of this processor are being studied by describing the existing design made on FPGA device. The paper elaborates the ideas for further developments and optimization focusing on the structure of pipeline in control unit. The disadvantages that limit the possibilities of system are being presented. Paper shows workflow through designing a new system and adding an interface to external LCD module. Also, the implementation of driver program for drawing graphical primitives and characters on the LCD screen written in FRISC assembly language is described

Highly parallel GPU accelerator for HEVC transform and quantization

When analysing Internet traffic today it can be found that digital video content prevails. Its domination will continue to grow in the upcoming years and reach 82% of all traffic by 2021. If converted to Internet video minutes per second, this equals about one million video minutes per second. Providing and supporting improved compression capability is therefore expected from video processing devices. This will relieve the pressure on storage systems and communication networks while creating preconditions for further development of video services. Transform and quantization is one of the most compute-intensive parts of modern hybrid video coding systems where coding algorithm itself is commonly standardized. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is state-of-the-art video coding standard which achieves high compression efficiency at the cost of high computational complexity. In this paper we present highly parallel GPU accelerator for HEVC transform and quantization which targets most common heterogeneous computing CPU+GPU system. The accelerator is implemented using CUDA programming model. All the relevant state-of-the-art techniques related to kernel vectorization, shared memory optimization and overlapping data transfers with computation were investigated, customized and carefully combined to obtain a performance efficient solution across all applicable transform sizes. The proposed solution is compared against reference implementation which uses NVIDIA cuBLAS library to perform the same work. Obtained speedup factors for DCI 4K frame are 2.46 times for largest transform size and 130.17 times for smallest transform size what revealed substantial performance gap of this library when targeting GPU of the Kepler architecture. Achieved processing time of frame transform and quantization are up to 4.82 ms

MANGO: Exploring Manycore Architectures for Next-GeneratiOn HPC Systems

The Horizon 2020 MANGO project aims at exploring deeply heterogeneous accelerators for use in High-Performance Computing systems running multiple applications with different Quality of Service (QoS) levels. The main goal of the project is to exploit customization to adapt computing resources to reach the desired QoS. For this purpose, it explores different but interrelated mechanisms across the architecture and system software. In particular, in this paper we focus on the runtime resource management, the thermal management, and support provided for parallel programming, as well as introducing three applications on which the project foreground will be validated