PAM-Blox II: design and evaluation of C++ module generation for computing with FPGAs

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper explores the implications of integrating flexible module generation into a compiler for FPGAs. The objective is to improve the programmability of FPGAs, or in other words, the productivity of the FPGA programmer. We describe (1) the module generation library PAM-Blox II, the second generation of object-oriented module generators in C++, targeted at computing with FPGAs, and (2) examples of design tradeoffs and performance results using redundant representations for addition and multiplication, and technology mapping of comparison and elementary function evaluation.PAM-Blox II is built on top of a set of extensions to the gate level FPGA design library PamDC to provide a more ef隆cient, portable, scalable, and maintainable module generator library. Using PAM-Blox II we demonstrate a simplified interface to bit-level programability. The simplification results from the bottom-up approach and a close coupling of architecture generation, module generation and gate level CAD.The tradeoffs for the module generators are based on trading area for speed and hand-optimizing technology mapping to the specific FPGA technology. As an example, weshow that redundant number representations hold one key to unleashing the full potential of reconfigurability on the bit-level. The presented module generators are applied to encryption and compression to show the impact of the bit-level optimizations on application performance.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: