A RISC-V Coprocessor for Seamless Integration of Stream-Based Accelerators

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Abstract

The increasing computational intensity of modern applications such as deep learning or computer vision has called for a shift in the focus of research towards heterogeneous architectures with specialized accelerators integrated with a system of general-purpose computing cores. However, integrating such accelerators requires deep hardware expertise, posing significant challenges due to steep learning curves and long development times. This work provides a modular and extensible hardware platform to seamlessly integrate stream-based HLS/RTL accelerators with a RISC-V-based general-purpose core. The platform extends the RISC-V ISA by providing a set of custom instructions to control and manage multiple stream-based accelerators directly through the RISC-V core. The accelerators are hosted by a coprocessor unit tightly coupled to the RISC-V core through the open-source eXtension Interface. The proposed RISC-V-based coprocessor features a modular and flexible architecture which can be configured with user-defined custom stream-based accelerators. The implementation of this coprocessor on an AMD/Xilinx RFSoC 4x2 board shows a lightweight design, occupying less than 4% of the available LUTs, and an evaluation of the coprocessor architecture indicates that data-intensive applications using multiple hardware modules sequentially or in parallel benefit the most.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2025 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW)
Pages1221-1227
Number of pages7
ISBN (electronic)979-8-3315-2643-6
Publication statusPublished - 7 Jun 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesIEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing Workshops and Phd Forum (IPDPSW)
ISSN2639-3867

Conference

Title39th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium
Abbreviated titleIPDPS 2025
Conference number39
Duration3 - 7 June 2025
Website
LocationPolitecnico di Milano
CityMilan
CountryItaly

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2571-8441/work/190571648
Mendeley 40698b80-b96b-3bbe-9b8b-5a2b94aefb16
Scopus 105015365697

Keywords

Keywords

  • Computer architecture, Coprocessors, Deep learning, Distributed databases, Distributed processing, Field programmable gate arrays, Hardware acceleration, Software, Table lookup, Throughput, FPGAs, Hardware Accelerators, High-Level Synthesis, RISC-V