research-article

SymbiFlow and VPR: An Open-Source Design Flow for Commercial and Novel FPGAs

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Alessandro ComodiAuthors Info & Claims

IEEE Micro, Volume 40, Issue 4

Pages 49 - 57

https://doi.org/10.1109/MM.2020.2998435

Published: 01 July 2020 Publication History

Abstract

As the benefits of Moore's Law diminish, computing performance, and efficiency gains are increasingly achieved through specializing hardware to a domain of computation. However, this limits the hardware's generality and flexibility. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), microchips which can be reprogrammed to implement arbitrary digital circuits, enable the benefits of specialization while remaining flexible. A challenge to using FPGAs is the complex computer-aided design flow required to efficiently map a computation onto an FPGA. Traditionally, these design flows are closed-source and highly specialized to a particular vendor's devices. We propose an alternate data-driven approach, which uses highly adaptable and retargettable open-source tools to target both commercial and research FPGA architectures. While challenges remain, we believe this approach makes the development of novel and commercial FPGA architectures faster and more accessible. Furthermore, it provides a path forward for industry, academia, and the open-source community to collaborate and combine their resources to advance FPGA technology.

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Wang XStroobandt D(2024)The Influence of Interconnection Complexity on the FPGA CAD FlowProceedings of the 2024 ACM International Workshop on System-Level Interconnect Pathfinding10.1145/3708358.3709350(1-8)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2024
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Thurmer KBetz V(2024)VIPER: A VTR Interface for Placement with Error ResilienceProceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies10.1145/3665283.3665300(99-108)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2024
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Azadi AArjomand AKent K(2023)Extending Memory Compatibility with Yosys Front-End in VTR FlowProceedings of the 34th International Workshop on Rapid System Prototyping10.1145/3625223.3649269(1-8)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2023
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SymbiFlow and VPR: An Open-Source Design Flow for Commercial and Novel FPGAs

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Published In

IEEE Micro Volume 40, Issue 4

July-Aug. 2020

121 pages

ISSN:0272-1732

Issue’s Table of Contents

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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IEEE Computer Society Press

Washington, DC, United States

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Published: 01 July 2020

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Wang XStroobandt D(2024)The Influence of Interconnection Complexity on the FPGA CAD FlowProceedings of the 2024 ACM International Workshop on System-Level Interconnect Pathfinding10.1145/3708358.3709350(1-8)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3708358.3709350
Thurmer KBetz V(2024)VIPER: A VTR Interface for Placement with Error ResilienceProceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies10.1145/3665283.3665300(99-108)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3665283.3665300
Azadi AArjomand AKent K(2023)Extending Memory Compatibility with Yosys Front-End in VTR FlowProceedings of the 34th International Workshop on Rapid System Prototyping10.1145/3625223.3649269(1-8)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3625223.3649269
Elgammal MBetz V(2023)Breaking Boundaries: Optimizing FPGA CAD with Flexible and Multi-threaded Re-ClusteringProceedings of the 13th International Symposium on Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies10.1145/3597031.3597054(11-18)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2023
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Sozzo EConficconi DZeni ASalaris MSciuto DSantambrogio M(2022)Pushing the Level of Abstraction of Digital System Design: A Survey on How to Program FPGAsACM Computing Surveys10.1145/353298955:5(1-48)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2022
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Elgammal MMurray KBetz V(2022)RLPlace: Using Reinforcement Learning and Smart Perturbations to Optimize FPGA PlacementIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2021.310986341:8(2532-2545)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2022
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Zhou YMaidee PLavin CKaviani AStroobandt D(2021)RWRoute: An Open-source Timing-driven Router for Commercial FPGAsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/349123615:1(1-27)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2021
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Cited By

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