An ever larger share of FPGAs are supporting Dynamic and Partial Reconfiguration (DPR). A reconfigurable point-to-point interconnect (Ï-P2P) is a communication mechanism based on DPR that swaps between different precomputed configurations stored in partial bitstreams. Ï-Point-to-Point (P2P) is intended as a lightweight interconnect that suits the reconfigurable systems where a limited number of configurations are desirable. This paper assesses the pros and cons of Ï-P2P in terms of resource and performance depending on the number of input/output signals, their width and the number of supported configurations. Experimental results, conducted on an Intel Cyclone V FPGA, compare Ï-P2P to an equivalently functional non-DPR solution called μ-P2P and to a full crossbar. They show that Ï-P2P is indeed lightweight but introduces performance limitations on operating frequency, memory footprint and reconfiguration time. However, Ï-P2P is in general the least resource intensive of the tested interconnects, except in the trivial case of low numbers of signals and configurations. In particular, an 18 à 18 full crossbar interconnect requires 75% more resources than an equivalent Ï-P2P. Interestingly, this resource difference between Ï-P2P and a full crossbar grows linearly with the interconnect size.
Exploring the performance of partially reconfigurable point-to-point interconnects / Abdali, El Mehdi; Pelcat, Maxime; Berry, Francois; Diguet, Jean-philippe; Palumbo, Francesca. - (2017), pp. 1-6. (Intervento presentato al convegno 12th International Symposium on Reconfigurable Communication-Centric Systems-on-Chip, ReCoSoC 2017 tenutosi a Madrid nel 12-14/07/2017) [10.1109/ReCoSoC.2017.8016160].
Exploring the performance of partially reconfigurable point-to-point interconnects
Palumbo, Francesca
2017-01-01
Abstract
An ever larger share of FPGAs are supporting Dynamic and Partial Reconfiguration (DPR). A reconfigurable point-to-point interconnect (Ï-P2P) is a communication mechanism based on DPR that swaps between different precomputed configurations stored in partial bitstreams. Ï-Point-to-Point (P2P) is intended as a lightweight interconnect that suits the reconfigurable systems where a limited number of configurations are desirable. This paper assesses the pros and cons of Ï-P2P in terms of resource and performance depending on the number of input/output signals, their width and the number of supported configurations. Experimental results, conducted on an Intel Cyclone V FPGA, compare Ï-P2P to an equivalently functional non-DPR solution called μ-P2P and to a full crossbar. They show that Ï-P2P is indeed lightweight but introduces performance limitations on operating frequency, memory footprint and reconfiguration time. However, Ï-P2P is in general the least resource intensive of the tested interconnects, except in the trivial case of low numbers of signals and configurations. In particular, an 18 à 18 full crossbar interconnect requires 75% more resources than an equivalent Ï-P2P. Interestingly, this resource difference between Ï-P2P and a full crossbar grows linearly with the interconnect size.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.