POLITECNICO DI MILANO Blanket Team Blanket Reconfigurable architecture and (IP) runtime reconfiguration support in Dynamic Reconfigurability in Embedded System Design

2 Outline Rationale Objectives Project Description Subprojects: YaRA, HARPE, ReCPU, SCAR, IPs Blanket in DRESD General information

Rationale Flexibility: many emerging products in communication, computing and consumer electronics demand that their functionality remains flexible also after the system has been manufactured. Support of new standards, e.g. in media processing Addition of new features Cost reduction and reusability: While a ready-made FPGA can be bought for $500, an application-specific IC, or ASIC, can cost anywhere from $4 million to $50 million. “If you make a mistake on an FPGA, hey, you just reprogram it. “ Dean Collins, deputy director of DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office and program manager for the Trust in IC initiative. Performance and runtime customization: reconfigurable computing is intended to fill the gap between hardware and software, achieving potentially much higher performance than software, while maintaining a higher level of flexibility than hardware. Therefore it is possible to apply reconfigurable solutions to systems such as: biomedical implants i.e., an artificial art control telecommunications i.e., adaptive intelligent routers Moreover: intelligent nanorobot control, artificial audio and vision, intelligent transducers at bio-electronic interfaces,… 3

4 Objectives Exploit dynamic reconfigurability for different target reconfigurable architectures Design innovative applicative solutions, with the corresponding architecture, towards real world needs Explore novel architectural paradigms e.g, DNA computing, bio-inspired system Increase the reconfiguration performance via novel techniques, i.e. runtime reconfigurable cores relocation

Project Description Blanket is a project related to the definition of novel reconfigurable architectures Blanket can be seen as organized in mainly three different parts: Generic reconfigurable architecture YaRA (SoC, MultiFPGA) HARPE (Multicore) Application specific reconfigurable architecture ReCPU (Regular Expression CPU) SCAR (a sort of reconfigurable ASIP) IP design to enhance the reconfiguration capabilities or to effectively use the reconfiguration at runtime DRC, BiRF, C*,...

YaRA YaRA: Yet another Reconfigurable Architecture The basic reconfigurable architecture defined a Static area: a basic Harvard architecture a Reconfigurable area: a device area composed of several reconfigurable regions YaRA v1: 1D, Whishbone BUS-based YaRA v2: 2D,CoreConnect-based

HARPE HARPE: a HARvard-based Processing Element tailored for partial dynamic reconfigurable architectures marBram: a framework for the creation of memory configuration bitstreams Propose a stand-alone processing element (PE) Harvard Architecture Soft-Processor Suits reconfigurable architectures Easily Configurable User-Logic Software (not supported by Xilinx tools) Bitstream File

ReCPU ReCPU: a new parallel and pipelined architecture for regular expression matching Regular Expressions (RE) as a programming language A RE is a sequence of instructions to be executed by the ReCPU processor

SCAR SCAR: Soft Core Adaptable aRchitecture NaHA: Nios adaptable Harvard-based Architecture What’s next: Leon, MicroBlaze... Propose an adaptable Harvard-based architecture able to meet at the best the specific needs of an application that has to be executed on a reconfigurable device

IPs DRC: DRESD/Dynamic Reconfiguration Controller Adaptable self-reconfiguration controllers BiRF: Bitstream Relocation Filter IP-Core used to implement runtime bitstream relocation Relocation solution suitable for different target architecture (BiRF, BiRF 2, …) C*: all the runtime reconfiguration support in a unique pipelined reconfiguration controller

Blanket in DRESD Blanket and Caronte marBram: a framework for the creation of memory configuration bitstreams LimboWARE: postpone the decision of whether executing a task in HW or in SW moving it at run-time VIRGIL: codesing framework DRCGen: automatic tool to define the best DRC according to the working scenario Blanket and CITiES PEReIRA: active reconfigurable functional unit YaRA (v3): a NoC based reconfigurable architecture Blanket and HERA YaRA (v2+): a 2D tile based reconfigurable architecture to implement online evolution Blanket and OSyRIS OS and architecture Blanket and Polaris C* and BiRF: IPs for runtime relocation

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