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Title: Evaluation of the FIR Example using Xilinx Vivado High-Level Synthesis Compiler

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1375449· OSTI ID:1375449

Compared to central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have major advantages in reconfigurability and performance achieved per watt. This development flow has been augmented with high-level synthesis (HLS) flow that can convert programs written in a high-level programming language to Hardware Description Language (HDL). Using high-level programming languages such as C, C++, and OpenCL for FPGA-based development could allow software developers, who have little FPGA knowledge, to take advantage of the FPGA-based application acceleration. This improves developer productivity and makes the FPGA-based acceleration accessible to hardware and software developers. Xilinx Vivado HLS compiler is a high-level synthesis tool that enables C, C++ and System C specification to be directly targeted into Xilinx FPGAs without the need to create RTL manually. The white paper [1] published recently by Xilinx uses a finite impulse response (FIR) example to demonstrate the variable-precision features in the Vivado HLS compiler and the resource and power benefits of converting floating point to fixed point for a design. To get a better understanding of variable-precision features in terms of resource usage and performance, this report presents the experimental results of evaluating the FIR example using Vivado HLS 2017.1 and a Kintex Ultrascale FPGA. In addition, we evaluated the half-precision floating-point data type against the double-precision and single-precision data type and present the detailed results.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1375449
Report Number(s):
ANL/ALCF-17/6; 137202
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English