Case for a field-programmable gate array multicore hybrid machine for an image-processing application

摘要

General purpose computer designers have recently begunnadding cores to their processors in order to increase performance.nFor example, Intel has adopted a homogeneous quad-core proces-nsor as a base for general purpose computing. PlayStation3 (PS3)ngame consoles contain a multicore heterogeneous processor knownnas the Cell, which is designed to perform complex image processingnalgorithms at a high level. Can modern image-processing algorithmsnutilize these additional cores? On the other hand, modern advance-nments in configurable hardware, most notably field-programmablengate arrays (FPGAs) have created an interesting question for generalnpurpose computer designers. Is there a reason to combine FPGAsnwith multicore processors to create an FPGA multicore hybridngeneral purpose computer? Iris matching, a repeatedly executednportion of a modern iris-recognition algorithm, is parallelized on annIntel-based homogeneous multicore Xeon system, a heterogeneousnmulticore Cell system, and an FPGA multicore hybrid system.nSurprisingly, the cheaper PS3 slightly outperforms the Intel-basednmulticore on a core-for-core basis. However, both multicore systemsnare beaten by the FPGA multicore hybrid system by >50%