Mind The (Synthesis) Gap: Examining Where Academic FPGA Tools Lag Behind Industry
File(s)fpl15_hung_final.pdf (458.48 KB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Hung, E
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Firstly, we present VTR-to-Bitstream v2.0, the latest version of our open-source toolchain that takes Verilog input and produces a packed, placed— and now routed—solution that can be programmed onto the Xilinx commercial FPGA architecture. Secondly, we apply this updated tool to measure the gap between academic and industrial FPGA tools by examining the quality of results at each of the three main compilation stages: synthesis, packing & placement, routing. Our findings indicate that the delay gap (according to Xilinx static timing analysis) for academic tools breaks down into a 31% degradation with synthesis, 10% with packing & placement, and 15% with routing. This leads us to believe that opportunities for improvement exist not only within VPR, but also in the front-end tools that lie upstream.
Date Issued
2015-09-02
Date Acceptance
2015-06-04
Citation
25th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications, FPL 2015
Journal / Book Title
25th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications, FPL 2015
Copyright Statement
© 2015 IEEE. TPersonal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Description
28.07.15 KB. Ok to add accepted version subject to embargo
Source
Field Programmable Logic and Applications
Start Date
2015-09-02
Coverage Spatial
London