PACT XPP—A Self-Reconfigurable Data Processing Architecture

Authors: Baumgarte V.; Ehlers G.; May F.; Nückel A.; Vorbach M.; Weinhardt M.

Source: The Journal of Supercomputing, Volume 26, Number 2, September 2003 , pp. 167-184(18)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

The eXtreme Processing Platform (XPP^TM) is a new runtime-reconfigurable data processing architecture. It is based on a hierarchical array of coarsegrain, adaptive computing elements, and a packet-oriented communication network. The strength of the XPP^TM technology originates from the combination of array processing with unique, powerful run-time reconfiguration mechanisms. Parts of the array can be configured rapidly in parallel while neighboring computing elements are processing data. Reconfiguration is triggered externally or even by special event signals originating within the array, enabling self-reconfiguring designs. The XPP^TM architecture is designed to support different types of parallelism: pipelining, instruction level, data flow, and task level parallelism. Therefore this technology is well suited for applications in multimedia, telecommunications, simulation, signal processing (DSP), graphics, and similar stream-based application domains. The anticipated peak performance of the first commercial device running at 150 MHz is estimated to be 57.6 GigaOps/sec, with a peak I/O bandwidth of several GByte/sec. Simulated applications achieve up to 43.5 GigaOps/sec (32-bit fixed point).

Keywords: reconfigurable processor; adaptive computing; run-time reconfiguration; partial reconfiguration; XPP

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: PACT Informationstechnologie AG, Muthmannstr. 1, D-80939 München, Germany

Publication date: 2003-09-01