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RAMP Breakout 1 Question 3

RAMP Breakout 1 Question 3. What are the standard distribution target machines? In what form should they be distributed? or What kind of infrastructure should the RAMP group ship, support, and maintain?. A Bright-Eyed User Receives a BEE3…. What else do they get?

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RAMP Breakout 1 Question 3

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  1. RAMP Breakout 1Question 3 What are the standard distribution target machines? In what form should they be distributed? or What kind of infrastructure should the RAMP group ship, support, and maintain?

  2. A Bright-Eyed User Receives a BEE3… • What else do they get? • A board bring-up (not our focus) • Reference Documentation • Tutorials • Reference Design (our focus) • Hold on a second… • Lots of different motivations • Let’s go a little bit more in depth…

  3. Different Layers, Users, Goals Layer: User: Goal: Programmers, OS Researchers Get great performance Software layer (SPEC, Computer Architects Explore a whiz-bang widget “Application” layer (RAMP Red, Blue, White, etc) RAMP/RDL Implementors Make interfacing easy RAMP/RDL interface (Load/Store DDR controller, etc) Domain experts: Xilinx, Microsoft, Intel Interface with physical devices “Bare-Metal” interface (DDR, Ethernet MAC, etc) BEE3 architects, Xilinx, etc. Ship physical board Physical Platform (XUP, BEE3, etc)

  4. Goals of a Reference Design Should: Show off features of the physical platform Give users confidence in the interfaces Give the users a “taste” of what the system can do Get users excited about RAMP/BEE3! (Me) Should not: Physically test the board Be overly complicated or intimidating Be the be-all and end-all system Lock users in to a particular organization

  5. RAMP Clear: Sample Reference Design • Taking all of these issues into account we propose RAMP Clear • 2-4 cores per FPGA • 8-16 per board • 32+ per rack • Microblaze the best (?) • Small cache • Running Linux • Software app? • “knobs”: cache miss rate/miss penalty

  6. Issue 1: RAMP vs BEE3 • Are RAMP and BEE3 the same thing? • Where do they overlap/differ?

  7. Issue 2: Board Independence? • Is board independence a goal of the RAMP project? • Boards have different interfaces, different devices • Should gateware be distributed in a board-dependent + middleware package? • Is this something RAMP should strive for? • Is this even possible? • Long-term: Migration path to assist users: • XUP -> BEE3 -> Beyond • Generational: BEE3 -> BEE4->…

  8. Issue 3: Systems vs Simulations • Is the reference design a System or a Simulation? • Should we strive to have tweakable “knobs” that the user can play with • Should RDL be used in the reference design? • Does the reference design need to show off virtualizing the clock?

  9. Issue 4: Interfaces vs APIs • “Bare-Wire” interfaces are notoriously difficult • Should we try to standardize a “middleware” interface to abstract out some of this detail • Example: RAS/CAS DDR2 vs Load/Store • Is this an interface or an API? • Is the burden of standardizing too high? • Is this beyond the scope of the reference design?

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