FastCGRA: A Modeling, Evaluation, and Exploration Platform for Large-Scale Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Arrays

Abstract

Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Arrays (CGRAs) provide sufficient flexibility in domain-specific applications with high hardware efficiency, which make CGRAs suitable for fast-evolving fields such as neural network acceleration and edge computing. To meet the requirement of the fast evolution, we propose FastCGRA, the modeling, mapping, and exploration platform for large-scale CGRAs. FastCGRA supports hierarchical architecture description and automatic switch module generation. Connectivity-aware packing and graph partition algorithms are designed to reduce the complexity of placement and routing. The graph homomorphism placement algorithm in FastCGRA enables efficient placement on large-scale CGRAs. The packing and placement algorithms cooperate with a negotiation-based routing algorithm to form an integral mapping procedure. FastCGRA can support the modeling and mapping of large-scale CGRAs with significantly higher placement and routing efficiency than existing platforms. The automatic switch module generation method can reduce the complexity of CGRA interconnection design. With these features, FastCGRA can boost the exploration of large-scale CGRAs.