Application-specific customization of parameterized FPGA soft-core processors

David Sheldon, Rakesh Kumar, Roman Lysecky, Frank Vahid, Dean Tullsen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Soft-core microprocessors mapped onto field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) represent an increasingly common embedded software implementation option. Modern FPGA soft-cores are parameterized to support application-specific customization, wherein pre-defined units, such as a multiplication unit or floating-point unit, may be included in the microprocessor architecture to speed up software execution at the expense of increased size. We introduce a methodology for fast application-specific customization of a parameterized FPGA soft core, using synthesis and execution to obtain size and performance data in order to create a tool that can be used across a variety of tool platforms and FPGA devices. As synthesizing a soft core takes tens of minutes, developing heuristics that execute in an acceptable time of an hour or two, yet find near-optimal results, is a challenge. We consider two approaches, one using a traditional CAD approach that does an initial characterization using synthesis to create an abstract problem model and then explores the solution space using a knapsack algorithm, and the other using a synthesis-in-the-loop exploration approach. We compare approaches for a variety of design constraints, on 11 EEMBC benchmarks, using an actual Xilinx soft-core processor, and for two different commercial Xilinx FPGA devices. Our results show that the approaches can generate a customized configuration exhibiting roughly 2x speedups over a base soft core, reaching within 4% of optimal in about 1.5 hours, including complete synthesis of the soft-core onto the FPGA, compared to over 11 hours for exhaustive search. Our results also show that including synthesis-in-the-loop, compared to a traditional CAD approach, improved speedups by an average of 20% when size constraints were tight. The approaches may also be applicable to soft-core processors targeted to ASICs in addition to FPGAs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, ICCAD
Pages261-268
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
Externally publishedYes
Event2006 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, ICCAD - San Jose, CA, United States
Duration: Nov 5 2006Nov 9 2006

Publication series

NameIEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, Digest of Technical Papers, ICCAD
ISSN (Print)1092-3152

Other

Other2006 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, ICCAD
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Jose, CA
Period11/5/0611/9/06

Keywords

  • Customization
  • FPGA
  • Parameterized platforms
  • Soft-core processors
  • Tuning

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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