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A Superscalar Out-of-Order x86 Soft Processor for FPGA (2017)

(tspace.library.utoronto.ca)
90 points matt_d | 1 comments | 07 Mar 19 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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Skunkleton ◴[07 Mar 19 22:31 UTC] No.19333243[source]▶
I am by no means an expert in digital design (I have only worked with them as a SWE), but it seems to me that the use cases for a high performance soft processor are pretty few and far between. After all, if you want a fast processor you can get a hard processor with excellent performance/support for less than the FPGA fabric likely cost.

Still a cool piece of tech though.

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monocasa ◴[07 Mar 19 22:41 UTC] No.19333342[source]▶
Section 1.1 makes a pretty good argument in favor.
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Skunkleton ◴[08 Mar 19 02:05 UTC] No.19334533[source]▶
What I am trying to say is that FPGA fabric is expensive, and at some point if you use too much, then it will push you to a new part. Most of the time I would guess it to be cheaper to have a separate processor for more intensive tasks. Of course if you have some IP that is partially implemented in a soft core, then it might not be practical to offload it to an external cpu.
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1. 0815test ◴[08 Mar 19 03:01 UTC] No.19334747[source]▶
This is not for commodity tasks, though. Think reimplementing an old x86 system on FPGA and using it to keep old software (games, utilities, cool demos) properly functioning, even for things that might not work properly with simple software emulation. With Intel now planning to abandon support for the BIOS and for 16-bit and 32-bit system boot in new x86 architectures, an independent reimplementation is something we should have.