CN103514140B - For realizing the reconfigurable controller of configuration information multi-emitting in reconfigurable system - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a reconfiguration controller and a management method for realizing multiple emission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system, including a configuration information cache unit, a configuration information prefetch control module, a configuration information update control module, and a configuration information analysis module , a configuration information sending control module, and a configuration information reading and writing interface module. The invention improves the dynamic reconfiguration efficiency of complex reconfigurable systems.

Description

A Reconfiguration Controller for Realizing Multiple Emissions of Configuration Information in Reconfigurable Systems

technical field

The invention relates to the field of embedded reconfigurable design, in particular to a reconfiguration controller and a management method for multiple emission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system.

Background technique

In recent years, with the development of microelectronics technology and computer technology, especially the emergence of large-scale high-performance programmable devices, the improvement of software and hardware design methods and design tools, reconfigurable computing has gradually become one of many fields in the world. A new research hotspot. The essence of reconfigurable computing is to use the characteristics of programmable devices that can repeatedly configure the logic state, and dynamically change the circuit structure of the system according to the needs during operation, so that the system is flexible, simple, and hardware resources can be reconfigured. Reusable, easy to upgrade and other excellent performance. Reconfigurable systems are mostly composed of reconfigurable hardware and a reconfigurable configuration control unit that manages the reconfiguration of hardware functions. The reconfigurable configuration control unit maps each subtask included in the algorithm application to each computing unit in the reconfigurable hardware by updating the configuration information on the reconfigurable hardware. Reconfigurable hardware can use the fine-grained logic unit of FPGA, or the coarse-grained module with specific functions, so that the execution of hardware functions is more flexible, the gap between software and hardware is less obvious, and hardware tasks can be similar to software tasks according to requirements. Flexible calling and configuration.

Reconfigurable computing has been widely used in high-speed digital filters, image compression, cryptographic processing, hardware evolution computing, custom computing (Custom Computing), embedded systems and other fields. With the increasing requirements of various software applications, today's The performance requirements of reconfigurable systems are also getting higher and higher. The working performance of a reconfigurable system is determined by the computing performance and reconfiguration performance of the reconfigurable hardware. The computing performance reflects the execution efficiency of each subtask on the reconfigurable hardware, and the reconfigurable performance reflects the realization of each Refactoring efficiency of subtask function switching. In the case of constant computing performance, the key to improving the performance of the reconfigurable system is to improve the hardware reconfiguration efficiency of the reconfigurable system. However, how to improve the reconfiguration efficiency of the hardware in the reconfigurable system by using the characteristics of algorithm application in the local dynamic reconfigurable system has become a factor restricting the development of reconfigurable technology.

In the design of a reconfigurable system, the configuration information is usually sent to the reconfigurable array according to the request, and the configuration information is often stored in the configuration information cache, so how to efficiently access the configuration information and send the configuration information to The management method of the reconfigurable array determines the efficiency of dynamic reconfiguration. In the traditional reconfigurable system, according to the configuration information access request of the reconfigurable array, it will respond one by one in chronological order. The specific process is to parse the configuration information access request to obtain the configuration information address, and store it in the configuration information cache unit according to the configuration information address. Read the configuration information, and then send the read configuration information to the reconfigurable array that issues the configuration information access request. Considering the request response process in the traditional reconfigurable system, it is found that when the configuration information required by the current and subsequent adjacent requests is the same, it is still necessary to repeatedly read the configuration information in the configuration information cache unit, which results in a large amount of configuration information 1. When the repetition rate of configuration information is high, the response speed of configuration information access requests is slow and the efficiency is low.

Contents of the invention

Purpose of the invention: In view of the problems and deficiencies in the prior art above, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a reconfigurable controller and management method for implementing multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system, so as to improve the efficiency of complex reconfigurable systems. Dynamic refactoring efficiency.

Technical solution: In order to achieve the purpose of the above invention, the first technical solution adopted by the present invention is a reconfiguration controller for realizing multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system, including a configuration information cache unit, configuration information prefetch control module, a configuration information update control module, a configuration information analysis module, a configuration information sending control module, and a configuration information read-write interface module;

The configuration information cache unit: used to cache configuration information that may be used by one or several reconfigurable arrays within a period of time;

The configuration information prefetching control module: used to control the configuration information read-write interface to read the configuration information from the external memory and store it in the configuration information cache unit;

The configuration information update control module: used to control the update of the configuration information in the configuration information cache unit;

The configuration information parsing module: used for parsing the configuration information access request sent by the reconfigurable array to the configuration information read-write interface;

The configuration information sending control module: used to control the configuration information read-write interface to simultaneously send configuration information to one or several reconfigurable arrays;

The configuration information read-write interface: used to establish communication with an external memory to perform read-write operations of configuration information.

Further, the configuration information parsing module includes a configuration information access request cache unit and a configuration information address parsing unit;

The configuration information access request cache unit: used to cache configuration information access requests sent by one or several reconfigurable arrays within a period of time;

The configuration information address parsing unit: used for comparing the configuration information address in the configuration information access request cache unit.

Further, the configuration information access request cache unit stores the configuration information access requests sent by one or several reconfigurable arrays within a period of time according to the time sequence in which the configuration information access requests are sent, and the storage content includes each configuration information access request The configuration information address of the access request and the requesting reconfigurable array number.

Further, the configuration information address resolution unit reads a configuration information access request from the configuration information access request cache unit each time, if the address of the configuration information this time is the same as the address of the previous configuration information, continue to parse the next configuration information For an access request, if the current configuration information address is different from the previous configuration information address, the configuration information is read from the configuration information cache unit according to the previous configuration information address, and sent to the corresponding reconfigurable array. In this way, only one response is required for multiple access requests of the same configuration information adjacent in time, which reduces the number of accesses and access time of configuration information, improves the configuration speed of reconfigurable systems, and thus improves the complexity of reconfigurable systems. The dynamic reconfiguration efficiency of the structural system.

The second technical solution adopted by the present invention is a management method using the reconfigurable controller for realizing multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system as described above, including the following steps:

(1) The reconfigurable array sends a configuration information access request to the reconfigurable controller;

(2) The reconstruction controller stores the received configuration information access requests into the configuration information access request cache unit of the configuration information analysis module in order of time;

(3) The configuration information address resolution unit in the configuration information resolution module reads a configuration information access request from the configuration information access request cache unit;

(4) The configuration information address resolution unit parses out the configuration information address from the configuration information access request, if the configuration information address is the same as the configuration information address of the previous request, go to step (3) and continue to parse the next configuration information access request; Otherwise, go to step (5), and read the configuration information from the configuration information cache unit according to the configuration information address of the previous request;

(5) The configuration information address resolution unit sends the read configuration information to the required reconfigurable array through the configuration information sending control module.

Beneficial effects: the present invention changes the traditional The management method of responding to the configuration information access request in the reconfigurable system improves the dynamic reconfiguration efficiency of the complex reconfigurable system.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Description of drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a reconfiguration controller for implementing multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a configuration information parsing module;

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of a management method for realizing multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

detailed description

Below in conjunction with accompanying drawing and specific embodiment, further illustrate the present invention, should be understood that these embodiments are only for illustrating the present invention and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, after having read the present invention, those skilled in the art will understand various aspects of the present invention Modifications in equivalent forms all fall within the scope defined by the appended claims of this application.

As shown in Figure 1, the reconfiguration controller used to implement multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system includes: configuration information cache unit: used for caching that may be used by one or several reconfigurable arrays for a period of time configuration information; configuration information prefetching control module: used to control the interface to read configuration information from the external memory and store it in the above configuration information cache unit; configuration information update control module: used to control the update of configuration information in the configuration information cache unit ;Configuration information analysis module: used to analyze the configuration information access request sent by the reconfigurable array to the configuration information read and write interface (referred to as "interface"); configuration information sending control module: used to control the interface to send configuration information to a certain or Several reconfigurable arrays; configuration information read and write interface: used to establish communication with off-chip memory (that is, the aforementioned "external memory") to read and write configuration information.

Among them, the hardware structure of the configuration information parsing module, as shown in Figure 2, includes: a configuration information access request cache unit: used to cache configuration information access requests sent by one or several reconfigurable arrays within a period of time; configuration information Address resolution unit: for comparing the address of the configuration information in the above configuration information access request cache unit.

As shown in Figure 3, the management method for multi-transmission of configuration information in a reconfigurable system includes the following five steps:

(1) The reconfigurable array sends a configuration information access request signal to the reconfigurable controller;

(2) The reconstruction controller stores the received configuration information access requests into the configuration information access request cache unit of the configuration information analysis module in order of time;

(3) The configuration information address resolution unit in the configuration information resolution module reads a configuration information access request ("access request" for short) from the configuration information access request cache unit;

(4) Parse the configuration information address from the access request. If the configuration information address is the same as the configuration information address of the previous request, go to step (3) and continue to parse the next access request; otherwise, go to step (5), Read the configuration information from the configuration information cache unit according to the configuration information address of the previous request;

(5) Send the read configuration information to the required reconfigurable array through the configuration information sending control module.

As shown in Figure 1, the high-definition digital video decoding (H.2641080p30fpsHiPLevel4) of the H.264 protocol adopts the reconfiguration controller and management method for multiple transmission of configuration information in the reconfigurable system proposed by the present invention, and can realize H.2641080p30fpsHiPLevel4 high-definition video decoding requirements.

The reconfiguration controller includes: configuration information cache, configuration information prefetch control hardware logic module, configuration information update control hardware logic module, configuration information parsing hardware logic module, configuration information sending control hardware logic module, reconfigurable array, configuration information Read and write interface, AHB (Advanced High Performance Bus, Advanced High Performance Bus) bus. The configuration information cache is connected to the external memory through the 32-bit AHB bus and the configuration information read-write interface. The external memory adopts the most commonly used embedded external memory DDR2SDRAM, supports 64-bit data access bit width, and has good cost performance and energy consumption ratio; RCA There are 4 in total, and each RCA contains 8×8 PEs. For this verification system, the address width of each set of corresponding configuration information is 14bit, and the size is 1KByte. The configuration information access request cache unit has a width of 17 bits, of which the reconfigurable array number is 4 bits, and the configuration information address is 13 bits; the depth is 8, which can store configuration information access requests of 8 reconfigurable arrays. The configuration information cache unit contains 32 storage blocks, which can store 32 sets of configuration information. The bit width of the configuration information read-write interface between the configuration information cache unit and the RCA is 512 bits. As a comparative experiment, a comparative verification system is set up, the difference from the above verification system is that the configuration information parsing module is removed. Experimental results show that, using the reconfigurable controller structure and management method proposed by the present invention for realizing multi-transmission of configuration information in reconfigurable systems, the number of visits to the configuration information cache is reduced by about 30%, and the bandwidth is saved by about 40%, making the entire The performance is improved by about 35%.

Among them, the reconfigurable array (ReConfigurableArray) is referred to as RCA.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the present invention. Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, for those skilled in the art, it still The technical solutions recorded in the foregoing embodiments may be modified, or some technical features thereof may be equivalently replaced. Any modifications, equivalent replacements, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present invention shall be included within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims (2)

1. one kind for realizing the reconfigurable controller of configuration information multi-emitting in reconfigurable system, it is characterized in that, comprise configuration information buffer unit, configuration information prefetching control module, configuration information update control module, configuration information parsing module, configuration information sends control module, and configuration information read-write interface module;

Described configuration information buffer unit: for the configuration information that may be used by certain or certain several reconfigurable arrays in buffer memory a period of time;

Described configuration information prefetching control module: be deposited into described configuration information buffer unit from external memory storage reading configuration information for controlling configuration information read-write interface;

Described configuration information update control module: for controlling the renewal of configuration information in configuration information buffer unit;

Described configuration information parsing module: the configuration information request of access being sent to configuration information read-write interface for resolving reconfigurable arrays, comprises configuration information request of access buffer unit and configuration information address resolution unit; Described configuration information request of access buffer unit is used for the configuration information request of access that in buffer memory a period of time, certain or certain several reconfigurable arrays sends, and described configuration information address resolution unit is used for the configuration information address in more described configuration information request of access buffer unit; Wherein, configuration information request of access buffer unit stores according to the time order and function order sending configuration information request of access the configuration information request of access that in a period of time, certain or certain several reconfigurable arrays sends, and stores content and comprises the configuration information address of each configuration information request of access and send the reconfigurable arrays numbering of request; Configuration information address resolution unit reads a configuration information request of access at every turn from configuration information request of access buffer unit, if this configuration information address is identical with previous configuration information address, then continue to resolve next configuration information request of access, if this configuration information address is not identical with previous configuration information address, then from configuration information buffer unit, read configuration information according to the address of previous configuration information, send to corresponding reconfigurable arrays;

Described configuration information sends control module: send configuration information to certain or certain several reconfigurable arrays for controlling configuration information read-write interface simultaneously;

Described configuration information read-write interface: communicating for setting up with external memory storage, being configured the read-write operation of information.

2. utilizing as claimed in claim 1 for realizing a management method for the reconfigurable controller of configuration information multi-emitting in reconfigurable system, comprising the steps:

(1) reconfigurable arrays sends configuration information request of access to described reconfigurable controller;

(2) reconfigurable controller by the configuration information request of access that receives according to time order and function in order stored in the configuration information request of access buffer unit of configuration information parsing module;

(3) the configuration information address resolution unit in configuration information parsing module reads a configuration information request of access from configuration information request of access buffer unit;

(4) configuration information address resolution unit parses configuration information address from configuration information request of access, if configuration information address is identical with the configuration information address of previous request, forward step (3) to, continue to resolve next configuration information request of access; Otherwise, forward step (5) to, in configuration information buffer unit, read configuration information according to the configuration information address of previous request;

(5) configuration information read is sent by configuration information the reconfigurable arrays that control module sends to needs by configuration information address resolution unit.