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A chip prototyping substrate: the flexible architecture for simulation and testing (FAST)

Published: 01 November 2005 Publication History

Abstract

We describe a hybrid hardware emulation environment: the Flexible Architecture for Simulation and Testing (FAST). FAST integrates field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), microprocessors, and memory to enable rapid prototyping of chip multiprocessors, multithreaded architectures, or other novel computer architectures and chip-level memory systems. FAST combines configurable and fixed-function hardware and software to facilitate rapid prototyping by utilizing components optimized for their particular tasks: FPGAs for interconnect and glue logic; processors for rapid program execution; and SRAMs for fast memory. Unlike software simulators, FAST can simulate complex designs at multi-megahertz speeds regardless of the simulation detail. We illustrate FAST's utility by describing mappings of both a small-scale CMP with speculation support and a large-scale CMP connected using a network. We then show performance results from a very simple, decoupled 4-way CMP executing small test programs.

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Cited By

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  • (2014)Design and Performance Evaluation of a Manycore Processor for Large FPGAProceedings of the 2014 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Manycore SoCs10.1109/MCSoC.2014.37(207-214)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2014
  • (2011)An FPGA-based scalable simulation accelerator for tile architecturesACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2082156.208216639:4(38-43)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2011
  • (2010)Combining multicore and reconfigurable instruction set extensionsProceedings of the 18th annual ACM/SIGDA international symposium on Field programmable gate arrays10.1145/1723112.1723119(33-36)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2010
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Published In

cover image ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News
ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News  Volume 33, Issue 4
Special issue: dasCMP'05
November 2005
130 pages
ISSN:0163-5964
DOI:10.1145/1105734
Issue’s Table of Contents

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2005
Published in SIGARCH Volume 33, Issue 4

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Cited By

View all
  • (2014)Design and Performance Evaluation of a Manycore Processor for Large FPGAProceedings of the 2014 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Manycore SoCs10.1109/MCSoC.2014.37(207-214)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2014
  • (2011)An FPGA-based scalable simulation accelerator for tile architecturesACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2082156.208216639:4(38-43)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2011
  • (2010)Combining multicore and reconfigurable instruction set extensionsProceedings of the 18th annual ACM/SIGDA international symposium on Field programmable gate arrays10.1145/1723112.1723119(33-36)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2010
  • (2008) Rapid Prototyping of the Data-Driven Chip-Multiprocessor (D 2 -CMP) using FPGAs Parallel Processing Letters10.1142/S012962640800339918:02(291-306)Online publication date: Jun-2008
  • (2007)A practical FPGA-based framework for novel CMP researchProceedings of the 2007 ACM/SIGDA 15th international symposium on Field programmable gate arrays10.1145/1216919.1216936(116-125)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2007

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