Title
The routability of multiprocessor network topologies in FPGAs
Abstract
A fundamental difference between ASICs and FPGAs is that wires in ASICs are designed such that they match the requirements of a particular design. Wire parameters such as length, width, layout and the number of wires can be varied to implement a desired circuit. Conversely, in an FPGA, area is fixed and routing resources exist whether or not they are used, so the goal becomes implementing a circuit within the limits of available resources. The architecture for existing routing structures in FPGAs has evolved over time to suit the requirements of large, localized digital circuits. However, FPGAs now have the capacity to host networks of such circuits, and system-level interconnection becomes a key element of the design process.Following a standard design flow and using commercial tools, we investigate how this fundamental difference in resource usage affects the mapping of various network topologies to a modern FPGA routing structure. By exploring the routability of different multiprocessor network topologies with 8, 16 and 32 nodes on a single FPGA, we show that the difference between resource utilization of a ring, star, hypercube and mesh topologies is not significant up to 32 nodes. We also show that a fully-connected network can be implemented with at least 16 nodes, but with 32 nodes it exceeds the routing resources available on the FPGA. We also derive a cost metric that helps to estimate the impact of the topology selection based on the number of nodes.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1145/1117201.1117253
system-level interconnect prediction
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
network-on-chip,fundamental difference,design process,modern fpga routing structure,particular design,standard design flow,interconnect,routing resource,routing structure,different multiprocessor network topology,fully-connected network,single fpga,topology,multiprocessor,fpga,network on chip,design flow,ip,resource utilization,network topology,discrete fourier transform,digital circuits
Conference
1-59593-292-5
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
15
1.06
10
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Manuel Saldaña1625.96
Lesley Shannon21199.10
Paul Chow3868119.97