Configurable Computing for Mainstream Software Applications

1
Configurable Computing for Mainstream Software
Applications

• William D. Bishop
• wdbishop_at_computer.org

2
Presentation Outline

• Introduction to configurable computing
• Motivation
• Definitions and concepts
• Niche applications
• Research into configurable computing for
  mainstream software
• Configurable computing experiments
• Test results
• Observations
• Conclusions

3
Motivation
"For a given class of problems, one set of basic
instructions may be more efficient than another
such set" John von Neumann, 1958

• In other words
• Application-specific computer hardware may be
  more efficient than general-purpose computer
  hardware for solving a given class of problems

4
Introduction to Configurable Computing

• Definition of a configurable computer
• Configurable computers offer the following
  advantages
• Increased control logic (a.k.a. processing units)
  flexibility
• Increased datapath (a.k.a. wiring) flexibility
• Ability to specialize the computer hardware at
  runtime

A configurable computer is a computing device
that provides hardware that may be modified at
runtime to efficiently compute of a set of tasks.
5
Types of Configurable Computers

• Loosely-Coupled
• Configurable coprocessor connected to a host
  computer via a peripheral bus
• Tightly-Coupled
• Configurable coprocessor connected directly to
  the system bus of a host computer
• Configurable Processing Unit
• Processor utilizes configurable hardware to
  implement a dynamic instruction set

6
Niche Applications of Configurable Computers

• What are niche applications of configurable
  computers?
• Applications that use bit-wise computations or
  integer arithmetic
• Applications with course-grain computations
• Examples of niche applications include the
  following
• Image processing Athanas, 1995 (138? 236?)
• Cryptography Vuillemin, 1996 (10? 1000?)
• Hardware emulation Dubois, 1995 (123? 207?)
• Performance improvements of 10? to 1000? are
  typical.

7
Research Goals

• Develop a model of a configurable computer
• Conduct experiments to quantify key factors that
  influence the performance of configurable
  computers
• Use the model to predict the performance of a
  configurable computer for mainstream software
  applications
• Propose a configurable computer architecture for
  mainstream software applications

8
Platform I PC ARC-PCI Board

• Processor Pentium III
• 450 MHz Pentium III
• 512 MB of SDRAM (10 ns)
• L1 and L2 Cache
• Coprocessor ARC-PCI
• Three FLEX 10K50 Devices
• 8640 LEs (Logic Elements)
• 60KB SRAM ( 20 ns)
• Operating System Windows NT 4.0
• Custom ARC-PCI Device Driver

Loosely-Coupled Configurable Computer
Photo Courtesy of Altera
9
Platform II Excalibur Development Board

• Processor 32-Bit Nios
• 33 MHz Nios 2.0
• Optimized for speed
• Hardware multiplication
• 256 KB SRAM ( 30 ns)
• Coprocessor APEX 20K200E
• One APEX 20K200E Device
• 8,320 LEs
• 104 KB SRAM ( 10 ns)
• Operating System NONE

Tightly-Coupled Configurable Computer
Figure Courtesy of Altera
10
Configurable Computing Experiments

• The following experiments were conducted
• Platform I Tests
• CSIM Coprocessor Tests
• Hardware Timer (SPEED) Tests
• Platform I and II Tests
• Pseudo-Random Number Generation (RAND) Tests
• Min Heap Insertion and Deletion (MIN) Tests

11
Hardware Timer (SPEED) Tests

• Hardware timer specifications
• Synthesizable VHDL design implemented on Platform
  I only
• Hardware timer with a 30 ns resolution
• Simple control / status register interface
• Implemented on Platform I only
• Developed application software to investigate the
  actual time required to transfer data
• Computes transfer time between the application
  and the hardware
• Computes transfer time between the device driver
  and the hardware

12
SPEED Test Results
NOTE These test results were obtained using
Windows NT 4.0
13
Pseudo-Random Number Generation (RAND) Tests

• Pseudo-random number generator specifications
• Synthesizable VHDL design suitable for both
  platforms
• Linear Congruential Generator (LCG)
• Generates 100 streams of 32-bit unsigned values
• Exploits parallelism through pre-calculation
• Developed application software to test the
  generator
• Computes a total of 500,000,000 pseudo-random
  numbers per test

14
RAND Test Results
15
Min Heap Insertion and Deletion (MIN) Tests

• Min heap specifications
• Synthesizable VHDL design suitable for both
  platforms
• Maximum heap size of 1000 entries
• Supports insertion and deletion
• Exploits parallelism
• Developed application software to test the min
  heap
• Performs a total of 5,000,000 insertions and
  deletions per test

16
MIN Test Results
NOTE These test results were obtained using a
heap with a maximum of 1000 entries
17
Observations

• Context-switching of the operating system
• Approximately 2 us for Windows NT 4.0
• No operating system executing on Platform II
• Memory utilization and bandwidth
• PC can read its memory at least twice as fast as
  the FLEX 10K50
• Nios and APEX 20K200E read memory at the same
  speed
• Bus utilization and bandwidth
• Under light loads, PCI bus reads take
  approximately twice as long on average as they
  should theoretically (544 ns vs. 300 ns)
• Bus contention doesnt occur in Platform II

18
Observations (cont.)

• Processing power
• Pentium III is approximately 75x to 100x faster
  than Nios processor
• Clock speed only accounts for a factor of 15x
• Super-scalar architecture and cache subsystem
  result account for additional processing power of
  Pentium III
• Exploitation of parallelism
• Depends upon the application and its granularity
• Can recover time lost to configuration,
  context-switching, memory utilization, and bus
  utilization

19
Conclusions

• Loosely-coupled configurable computers are not
  suitable for mainstream software applications due
  to operating system overhead, communication
  latency and poor memory bandwidth.
• Tightly-coupled configurable computers are
  suitable for mainstream software applications.
• Configurable computing may be useful for embedded
  systems.

20
Selected Configurable Computing References

• Katherine Compton and Scott Hauck, Reconfigurable
  Computing A Survey of Systems and Software. ACM
  Computing Surveys, Vol. 34, No. 2. pp. 171-210.
  June 2002.
• Peter M. Athanas and A. Lynn Abbott. Addressing
  the Computational Requirements of Image
  Processing with a Custom Computing Machine An
  Overview. In Proceedings of the Ninth
  International Parallel Processing Symposium
  Special Workshop on Reconfigurable Architectures
  and Algorithms, Santa Barbara, California, April
  1995.
• Jean E. Vuillemin, Patric Bertin, Didier Roncin,
  Mark Shand, Hervé H. Touati, and Philippe
  Boucard. Programmable Active Memories
  Reconfigurable Systems Come of Age. IEEE
  Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration
  (VLSI) Systems, 4(1)56-69, March 1996.
• Michel Dubois, Alain Gefflaut, Jaeheon Jeong,
  Adrian Moga, and Koray Oner. Multiprocessor
  Emulation with RPM Early Experience. Technical
  Report CENG95-23, University of Southern
  California, Los Angeles, California, December
  1995.
• William Bishop, ARC-PCI Website,
  http//www.pads.uwaterloo.ca/wdbishop/arc-pci.htm
  l.