RAMP Blue: A Message-Passing Manycore System in FPGAs

We are developing a set of reusable design blocks and several prototype systems for emulation of multi-core architectures in FPGAs. RAMP Blue is the first of these prototypes and was designed to emulate a distributed-memory message-passing architecture. The system consists of 768– 1008 MicroBlaze cores in 64–84 Virtex-II Pro 70 FPGAs on 16–21 BEE2 boards, surpassing the milestone of 1000 cores in a standard 42U rack. An architecture based on point-to-point channels and switches using a combination of custom and generic hardware provides the functionality. Virtual-cut-through dimensional routing on one of two hybrid topologies with virtual channels provides the connectivity. A control network with a tree topology provides management and debugging capabilities. A software infrastructure consisting of GCC, uClinux and UPC allows running off-the-shelf applications and scientific benchmarks. Initial performance is encouraging for emulation purposes. In this paper we report on the d...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: FPL
• Authors: Alex Krasnov, Andrew Schultz, John Wawrzynek, Greg Gibeling, Pierre-Yves Droz
• Keywords: Distributed-memory Message-passing Architecture, FPL 2007, Hardware, Pro 70 Fpgas, RAMP Blue