CprE / ComS 583

Reconfigurable Computing

Fall 2007

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Project

The goal of this project is for you to gain an in-depth understanding of some aspect of reconfigurable computing. Students will work in groups of 2-3 people, and will be expected to deliver a detailed proposal and final report, along with a presentation summarizing the project to the rest of the class. Each project must contain an element of design and experimentation; proposals that do not meet this criterion will be rejected.

Deliverables

• Proposal (2-3 pages, due week after midterm exam). This should include an introduction, a discussion of related work, and a discussion of your proposed approach. It should also detail specific design and experimentation methodologies where appropriate.
• Presentation (25 minutes, due last week of classes). On-campus students will be expected to present a summary of their findings to the rest of the class. Distance education students will be expected to provide the files and whatever notes would be required to give a presentation on their topic.
• Final Report (8-12 pages, due final exam week). See the proceedings of conferences like FPGA, FCCM, and FPL for examples of how to write papers on various topics in reconfigurable computing.

Some Suggested Topics

1. Design and implementation of X application
   • Pick any application or application domain
   • Identify whatever objectives need to optimized (power, performance, area, etc.)
   • Design and implement X targeting an FPGA
   • Compare to microprocessor-based implementations
2. Network processing
   • Explore the use of an FPGA as a network processor that can support flexibility in protocol through reconfiguration
   • Flexibility could be with respect to optimization
   • Could provide additional processing to packets/connections
3. Implement a full-fledged FPGA-based embedded system
   • From block diagram to physical hardware
   • Examples:
     • Image/video processing
     • Digital picture frame
     • Digital clock (w/video)
     • Sound effects processor
     • Any old-school video game :)
     • Voice-over-IP
4. Prototype some microarchitectural concept using FPGA
   • See proceedings of MICRO/ISCA/HPCA/ASPLOS from last 5 years
   • Survey some recurring theme
   • Compare results from simulation (Simplescalar) to FPGA prototype results
5. Evaluation of various FPGA automation tools and methodologies
   • Survey 3-4 different available FPGA design tools
   • Pick a representative (pre-existing) benchmark set, see how they fare...how well do they work?
   • Analyze output designs to determine basic differences in algorithms and methodology
6. Anything else that interests you!

Previous Year's Topics

• "FPGA Implementation of Frequency-Domain Audio Filter Bank" (2 students, Fall 2006)
• "Transparent FPGA-Based Network Analyzer" (2 students, Fall 2006)
• "FPGA-Based Library Design for Linear Algebra Applications" (2 students, Fall 2006)
• "An Improved Approach of Configuration Compression for FPGA-based Embedded Systems" (2 students, Fall 2006)
• "Analysis of Sobel Edge Detection Implementations" (1 student, Fall 2006)
• "Artificial Neural Networks on Dynamically Reconfigurable FPGAs" (3 students, Fall 2006)

Papers and presentations for these previously completed projects are available upon request.

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