The 244th R-CCS Cafe - part 2

Stencil-based applications play an essential role in high-performance systems as they occur in numerous computational areas, such as partial differential equation solving, seismic simulations, and financial option pricing, to name a few. In this context, Iterative Stencil Loops (ISLs) represent a prominent and well-known algorithmic class within the stencil domain. Specifically, ISL-based calculations iteratively apply the same stencil to a multi-dimensional system of points until it reaches convergence. However, due to their iterative and computationally intensive nature, these workloads are highly performance-hungry, demanding specialized solutions to boost performance and reduce power consumption. Here, FPGAs represent a valid architectural choice as their peculiar features enable the design of custom, parallel, and scalable ISL accelerators. Besides, the regular structure of ISLs makes them an ideal candidate for automatic optimization and generation flows. For these reasons, this paper introduces Senju, an open-source automation framework for FPGA-based ISL accelerators. Starting from an input description, Senju builds highly parallel hardware modules and automatizes all their design phases. Besides, it provides users with insights regarding the final performance through an accurate estimation model. The experimental evaluation shows remarkable and scalable results, reaching promising performance and energy efficiency improvements compared to the other single-FPGA literature approaches.