Location, location, location

When are FPGAs more energy efficient than processors? This question is complicated by technology factors and the wide range of application characteristics that can be exploited to minimize energy. Using a wire-dominated energy model to estimate the absolute energy required for programmable computations, we determine when spatially organized programmable computations (FPGAs) require less energy than temporally organized programmable computations (processors). The point of crossover will depend on the metal layers available, the locality, the SIMD wordwidth regularity, and the compactness of the instructions. When the Rent Exponent, p, is less than 0.7, the spatial design is always more energy efficient. When p = 0.8, the technology offers 8-metal layers for routing, and data can be organized into 16b words and processed in tight loops of no more than 128 instructions, the temporal design uses less energy when the number of LUTs is greater than 64K. We further show that heterogeneous multicontext architectures can use even less energy than the p = 0.8, 16b word temporal case.

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Location, location, location

Abstract: Competing interests EAF is a founder and share holder of VIDA Diagnostics, a company that is commercialising pulmonary image analysis software developed, in part, at the University of Iowa.Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

Cited by 6 publications

References 30 publications

Kung Fu Data Energy - Minimizing Communication Energy in FPGA Computations

Kung Fu Data Energy - Minimizing Communication Energy in FPGA Computations

Meltrix: A RRAM-Based Polymorphic Architecture Enhanced by Function Synthesis

Wordwidth, instructions, looping, and virtualization

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About