1 - CPRE 583 (Reconfigurable Computing): Reconfigurable Computing Systems Iowa State University (Ames) CPRE 583 Reconfigurable Computing Lecture 8: Wed

1 - CPRE 583 (Reconfigurable Computing): Reconfigurable Computing Systems Iowa State University (Ames)

CPRE 583Reconfigurable ComputingLecture 8: Wed 9/16/2011

(A Brief History and Applications)

Instructor: Dr. Phillip Jones([email protected])

Reconfigurable Computing LaboratoryIowa State University

Ames, Iowa, USA

http://class.ee.iastate.edu/cpre583/


• MP1: Due Next Friday. MP2 release date pushed to next Friday as well 9/23. Cut it from 3 week assignment to 2 week

• Mini literary survey assigned– PowerPoint tree due: Fri 9/23 by class, so try to have to

me by 9/22 night. My current plan is to summarize some of the classes findings during class.

– Final 5-10 page write up on your tree due: Fri 9/30 midnight.

Announcements/Reminders


• Start with searching for papers from 2008-2011 on IEEE Xplorer: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/– Advanced Search (Full Text & Meta data)

• Find popular cross references for each area

• For each area try to identify 1 good survey papers

• For each area– Identify 2-3 core Problems/issues– For each problem identify 2-3 Approaches for addressing – For each approach identify 1-2 papers that Implement the

approach.

Literary Survey


Literary Survey: Example Structure

Network Intrusion Detection

P1 P2 P3

A1 A2 A3 A1 A2 A1 A2

I1 I1 I2 I1 I1 I1 I1 I2 I1

• 5-10 page write up on your survey tree


Fall 2010 Student Example


• Chapter 3 of text

• Reading #1: Reconfigurable Computer Origins

Overview


• Basic history and some applications of Reconfigurable Computing Systems

What you should learn


Reconfigurable Computing System (RCS)

• Examples of Characteristics– Composed of reconfigurable devices– Devices are reprogrammed– Give hardware-level of performance– Give orders of Magnitude speed up over standard CPUs– Can perform a range of applications– Spatially Reprogrammed (Heterogeneous Computing)

• Great talk about the benefits of Heterogeneous Computing• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4969729965240981475#

• SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) not a RCS– A key difference typical all units are homogenous, and follow

instructions from a central issuing unit


Early Systems

• 1960’s: Fixed-Plus-Variable (F+V)– University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)– “Reconfigurable Computer Origins: The UCLA Fixed-Plus-Variable

(F+V) Structure Computer”, 2002, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

• 1980’s: (low logic density devices)– Xilinx, Altera, Atmel, Actel

• FPGA devices used as interface glue logic • 10K gates only!!

– Host Processor + Multiple FPGAs• Programmable Active Memories (PAM): 25 FPGAs• Virtual Computer Corporation (VCC): ~48 FPGAs• Splash: ~32 FPGAs (Cryptology, Pattern Matching)


More Modern Systems

• 1990’s: Increasing logic densities – PRISM: Brown University

• One of the first uses of a FPGA as a true coprocessor / off loading functional unit

– CAL (Configurable Logic Array) and XC6200• CAL developed by Algotronix• XC6200 developed by Xilinx based off CAL

after acquiring Algotronix–Dynamic (run-time) Partial Reconfiguration!!!


Circuit Emulation

• The use of FPGAs to emulate ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits), e.g. Xeon/Optiron Processors. Example platforms– PiE– QuickTurn– InCA

• Why– Bugs in a large processor is expensive!!!– Simulation slow (days -> weeks to run 1 ms)– Early testing of SW (e.g. boot Windows in one

day)


Circuit Emulation

• Virtual Wires (Work at M.I.T)


Accelerating Technology (Mid-Late 1990’s)

• FPGAs more generally used, Why?– Increased logic density (single device systems)– Increasing the performance of standard CPUs

becoming more difficult.• Memory Bandwidth issues• Power/Thermal issues

– Adaptive Computing Systems (ACS)• ~$100 million invested by the department of

defense for research over a 5 year period• Perhaps motivated England and Japan to push

research


Accelerating Technology (Mid-Late 1990’s)

• New trends– Single FPGA devices on standard interface

boards (e.g. PCI)– Many low coast platforms emerged (10’ -100’s)

• Issue: No standard tools for programming– SW/HW codesign not cleanly supported

• Tool chain for developing HW (from vendor)• Tool chain for developing SW (more standard, e.g. gcc)• No clean way to bring the HW and SW design process

together

– Still an on going open research issue today


Reconfigurable Supercomputing (2000’s)

• A typical architecture composed of many commercial CPUs each paired with a large FPGA

• Produced by major supercomputing players– Cray: 100’s of processing nodes (XD1)– SRC: – Silicon Graphics:

• Reconfigurable Application Specific Processor (RASP)

• Newer supercomputing players: Motherboard FPGA/CPU (Personal Supercomputers)– XtremeData (We have available for project use)– Nallatec– DRC– Convey (We have available for project use)


Brain Storm Applications/Areas

• What have people picked as topics for mini-surveys?


Next Class

• Reconfigurable Computing Architectures– Chapter 2 of text– Reading #3 & #4


Questions/Comments/Concerns

• Write down– Main point of lecture

– One thing that’s still not quite clear

– If everything is clear, then give an example of how to apply something from lecture

OR

Documents

1 - CPRE 583 (Reconfigurable Computing): Reconfigurable Computing Systems Iowa State University (Ames) CPRE 583 Reconfigurable Computing Lecture 8: Wed