Reconfigurable platforms for high performance processing

Abstract

This work deals with reconfigurable computation platforms for high speed simulation of physical phenomena, based on numerical models of algebraic linear systems. This type of simulation is of extreme importance in research centers as CENPES/Petrobrs, that develops applications of geophysical processing for prospection of oil and gas. Currently, these applications are implemented on PCs conventional clusters. A new approach for this type of problem is presented here, based on reconfigurable computer systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays technology (FPGA) and its implications regarding the hardware/software partitioning, operating system, memory connections, communication and device drivers. Such technologies make possible appreciable profits in terms of performance - electric power and processing speed when compared to the conventional clusters. This solution also promotes cost reduction when applied to massive computation and high complexity large data applications, normally used in scientific computation. A typical application is the Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc), models of reconfigurable architectures for high performance and its computational properties will be presented, with emphasis to platforms based on FPGAs. A platform currently in development in the Project HPCIn, called Aquarius, will also be presented. This is a Project from the Center for Informatics at the Federal University of Pernambuco in cooperation with CENPES/Petrobrs. HPCIn is also part of the RPCMod research network.