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Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

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Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#31
post #25

FPGA's are the shit but the software is the key. To make them really fly we need some really brilliant software to configure them. Someone is going to disrupt this space soon and whoever does I think will make a unicorn. Just my guess.

They bought one of the best hardware makers with one of the worst software platforms. I hope to all that is holy that they replaced the software entirely. What a nightmare those classes were...

Yes Quartus is complete crap! I wrote some of it.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#32

The biggest problem with reconfigurable computing is it's either an afterthought, tools are too narrow/proprietary or an extra add-in card. Add a million LUTs and several thousand special-purpose blocks (ALUs, CAM, SRAM, DSPs, etc.) on CPU die that can be reconfigured within a few 10k cycles (ie process context), and then future AI-enabled optimizing compilers could incrementally profile and accelerate applications w…

I thought FPGAs had a limited number of updates, enough to preclude this level of dynamism?

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#33
post #32

The biggest problem with reconfigurable computing is it's either an afterthought, tools are too narrow/proprietary or an extra add-in card. Add a million LUTs and several thousand special-purpose blocks (ALUs, CAM, SRAM, DSPs, etc.) on CPU die that can be reconfigured within a few 10k cycles (ie process context), and then future AI-enabled optimizing compilers could incrementally profile and accelerate applications w…

I thought FPGAs had a limited number of updates, enough to preclude this level of dynamism?

Not really. FPGAs tend to be accompanied by a flash memory storing the firmware, which of course has limited erase cycles, but you can also upload the firmware through other means.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#34
post #32

The biggest problem with reconfigurable computing is it's either an afterthought, tools are too narrow/proprietary or an extra add-in card. Add a million LUTs and several thousand special-purpose blocks (ALUs, CAM, SRAM, DSPs, etc.) on CPU die that can be reconfigured within a few 10k cycles (ie process context), and then future AI-enabled optimizing compilers could incrementally profile and accelerate applications w…

I thought FPGAs had a limited number of updates, enough to preclude this level of dynamism?

The configuration is held in SRAM cells in most FPGAs. Like the other commentor states, the SRAM can be loaded in different ways, some of which have write cycle limitations.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#35

The biggest problem with reconfigurable computing is it's either an afterthought, tools are too narrow/proprietary or an extra add-in card. Add a million LUTs and several thousand special-purpose blocks (ALUs, CAM, SRAM, DSPs, etc.) on CPU die that can be reconfigured within a few 10k cycles (ie process context), and then future AI-enabled optimizing compilers could incrementally profile and accelerate applications w…

There needs to be a marrying of software and hardware -- and processor instructions to support that. This is hierarchical reconfigurable cache-based architecture I designed a while ago at Intel; I doubt they have touched it but they do own it. https://www.google.com/patents/US20170153892

Just a thought - I suppose you wanted to post with a throwaway account, but claiming to be the inventor of the patent gives your identity away

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be a marrying of software and hardware -- and processor instructions to support that. This is hierarchical reconfigurable cache-based architecture I designed a while ago at Intel; I doubt they have touched it but they do own it. https://www.google.com/patents/US20170153892

Just a thought - I suppose you wanted to post with a throwaway account, but claiming to be the inventor of the patent gives your identity away

Sure, but this way his main account is not linked to his name.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#37

I've honestly been waiting for this since for YEARS. I've had a vision for "the future of computing". FPGAs that reconfigure themselves ( This would be hard for a single person, but any large company could handle making this. You can even do it with off-the-shelf FPGAs. The biggest problems are 1) bandwidth. The "macro" function size needs to be bigger than the latency hit you take for asking the FPGA over computing…

> As CPUs are designed for one thing "few, large, complex cases" while FPGAs are perfect for many, parallel simple cases" even more than a GPU.

FPGAs are quite good at parallel simple cases, that is correct, but they would lose to GPUs in performance/watt in most cases. Where FPGAs really shine is in parallel complex, non-uniform cases, especially cases that don’t map well to the classic CPU instructions, but can easily be performed with small latency on FPGAs.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#38
What's new here anyway? Intel bought Altera, and Altera have had development kits similar to this for a long time.

What is the price of the new FPGA add-on cards? That is what will make the difference here for a 'new push'.

Re: Intel Gears Up for FPGA Push

#39
post #27

I've honestly been waiting for this since for YEARS. I've had a vision for "the future of computing". FPGAs that reconfigure themselves ( This would be hard for a single person, but any large company could handle making this. You can even do it with off-the-shelf FPGAs. The biggest problems are 1) bandwidth. The "macro" function size needs to be bigger than the latency hit you take for asking the FPGA over computing…

> CPUs are designed for one thing "few, large, complex cases" while FPGAs are perfect for "many, parallel simple cases" even more than a GPU Hmm, where have I heard something like this before ... ah, yes, the brain - CPUs/FPGAs are like reason and instinct, because reason deals with "few, large, complex cases" and instinct has "many, parallel simple cases". The brain has its own CPU/FPGA divide.

Brain is an FPGA (of sorts).
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