Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA

To meet the high performance demands of embedded multimedia applications, embedded systems are integrating multiple processing units. However, they are mostly based on custom-logic design methodology. Designing parallel multicore systems using available standards intellectual properties yet maintain...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mouna Baklouti, Mohamed Abid
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2014-01-01
Series:International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/979327
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832556311207739392
author Mouna Baklouti
Mohamed Abid
author_facet Mouna Baklouti
Mohamed Abid
author_sort Mouna Baklouti
collection DOAJ
description To meet the high performance demands of embedded multimedia applications, embedded systems are integrating multiple processing units. However, they are mostly based on custom-logic design methodology. Designing parallel multicore systems using available standards intellectual properties yet maintaining high performance is also a challenging issue. Softcore processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a cheap and fast option to develop and test such systems. This paper describes a FPGA-based design methodology to implement a rapid prototype of parametric multicore systems. A study of the viability of making the SoC using the NIOS II soft-processor core from Altera is also presented. The NIOS II features a general-purpose RISC CPU architecture designed to address a wide range of applications. The performance of the implemented architecture is discussed, and also some parallel applications are used for testing speedup and efficiency of the system. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed multicore system, which achieves better speedup than the GPU (29.5% faster for the FIR filter and 23.6% faster for the matrix-matrix multiplication).
format Article
id doaj-art-0bc69e01b0ef4cfc91e9bd7d6859231e
institution Kabale University
issn 1687-7195
1687-7209
language English
publishDate 2014-01-01
publisher Wiley
record_format Article
series International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing
spelling doaj-art-0bc69e01b0ef4cfc91e9bd7d6859231e2025-02-03T05:45:37ZengWileyInternational Journal of Reconfigurable Computing1687-71951687-72092014-01-01201410.1155/2014/979327979327Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGAMouna Baklouti0Mohamed Abid1CES Laboratory, ENIS, University of Sfax, 3038 Sfax, TunisiaCES Laboratory, ENIS, University of Sfax, 3038 Sfax, TunisiaTo meet the high performance demands of embedded multimedia applications, embedded systems are integrating multiple processing units. However, they are mostly based on custom-logic design methodology. Designing parallel multicore systems using available standards intellectual properties yet maintaining high performance is also a challenging issue. Softcore processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a cheap and fast option to develop and test such systems. This paper describes a FPGA-based design methodology to implement a rapid prototype of parametric multicore systems. A study of the viability of making the SoC using the NIOS II soft-processor core from Altera is also presented. The NIOS II features a general-purpose RISC CPU architecture designed to address a wide range of applications. The performance of the implemented architecture is discussed, and also some parallel applications are used for testing speedup and efficiency of the system. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed multicore system, which achieves better speedup than the GPU (29.5% faster for the FIR filter and 23.6% faster for the matrix-matrix multiplication).http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/979327
spellingShingle Mouna Baklouti
Mohamed Abid
Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing
title Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
title_full Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
title_fullStr Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
title_full_unstemmed Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
title_short Multi-Softcore Architecture on FPGA
title_sort multi softcore architecture on fpga
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/979327
work_keys_str_mv AT mounabaklouti multisoftcorearchitectureonfpga
AT mohamedabid multisoftcorearchitectureonfpga