PCI-PipeRench and the SWORDAPI: A System for Stream-Based Reconfigurable Computing

  • Authors:
  • Ronald Laufer;R. Reed Taylor;Herman Schmit

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • FCCM '99 Proceedings of the Seventh Annual IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

Reconfigurable hardware accelerators have been shown to be flexible and efficient in stream-based applications. In this paper, we discuss the design of PCI-PipeRench and the SWORDAPI. PCI-PipeRench is a coprocessor utilizing the PipeRench architecture which includes on-chip control and data buffering to interface with a host processor over a PCI bus. SWORDAPI calls resemble standard C file control functions, and allow developers to create applications independent of underlying reconfigurable hardware details. In addition, the SWORDAPI provides a cosimulation environment so that verification can be performed using unmodified application source with a hardware simulator. Efficient utilization of the bus is of critical importance in the design of such a system; various methods used to address this issue are presented.