A Composable Workflow for Productive FPGA Computing via Whole-Program Analysis and Transformation (with Code Excerpts)

TR Number
TR-18-05
Date
2018-07-24
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Abstract

We present a composable workflow to enable highly-productive heterogeneous computing on FPGAs. The workflow consists of a trio of static analysis and transformation tools: (1) a whole-program, source-to-source translator to transform existing parallel code to OpenCL, (2) a set of OpenCL kernel linters, which target FPGAs to detect possible semantic errors and performance traps, and (3) a whole-program OpenCL linter to validate the host-to-device interface of OpenCL programs. The workflow promotes rapid realization of heterogeneous parallel code across a multitude of heterogeneous computing environments, particularly FPGAs, by providing complementary tools for automatic CUDA-to-OpenCL translation and compile-time OpenCL validation in advance of very expensive compilation, placement, and routing on FPGAs. The proposed tools perform whole-program analysis and transformation to tackle realworld, large-scale parallel applications. The efficacy of the workflow tools is demonstrated via a representative translation and analysis of a sizable CUDA finite automata processing engine as well as the analysis and validation of an additional 96 OpenCL benchmarks.

Description
Keywords
High Performance Computing, Parallel and Distributed Computing, Algorithms, Computer Systems
Citation