Adaptive Computing Systems

Solar Corona Solar Core This project is a subcontract under the Adaptive Computing Program of Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company. The program is funded by the Information Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Overview

The Ptolemy group is cooperating with Sanders on the development of software for synthesizing configurations of adaptive computing hardware from high-level, abstract descriptions of computations. A near-term result is the ACS domain of Ptolemy Classic, which supports design refinement from dataflow graphs through fixed-point analysis and design, through to FPGA synthesis.

A key feature of the ACS domain is its software architecture supporting the synthesis of different implementations from the same specification. The ACS domain uses the Corona/Core approach, which was created by Jose Pino and Tom Parks while they were at UC Berkeley. In the Corona/Core design, a star has one Interface, named the Corona, and one or more implementations, named Cores.

The ACS domain will help in automating the FPGA design process; it will help in transforming an SDF graph into a reasonable FPGA implementation. Initially, an Annapolis Microsystems Wildforce board will be the primary target.

The first public release of ACS is available in Ptolemy 0.7.1

Other links of interest:

  • Sanders Signal Processing Center (SPC) Papers Page
  • BRASS Project (Berkeley Reconfigurable Architecture, Systems and Software)