[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[partial-reconfig] Kernel Accelerator Device

Misters,
After reading with pleasure and attention your presentation about the Kernel Accelerator Device :
http://www.ccc.de/congress/2004/fahrplan/files/32-the-kernel-accelerator-device-slides.pdf 


I would greatly appreciate to make some suggestions to the last slide :




The KAD-Project needs
●
Architects to define the datailed KAD concept (20% done)
–



Hardware Designers (5% done)
–
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/FedoraElectronicLab


Summary
"Fedora Electronic Lab" is a Feature for Fedora 8. It was approved <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/SteeringCommittee/Meeting-20070816> on FESCo Meeting (2007-08-16).
Work is being done to ship a "Fedora Laboratory Livecd" when F8 will be released.
For Fedora 8's release, "Fedora Electronic Lab" targets mainly the Micro-Nano Electronic Engineering field. 

It introduces

*

tools for *A*pplication-*S*pecific *I*ntegrated *C*ircuit (*ASIC*)
*Design Flow* process to the Fedora Collection for ASIC Design Flow.

* extra open source standard cell libraries supporting a feature
size of 0.13µm
* extracted spice decks which are simulated with gnucap/ngspice
It is intended for electronic, *VLSI* (*V*ery *L*arge *S*cale *I*ntegration) students and hobbyists for educational purposes. 


Owner

*

Name: ChitleshGoorah <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ChitleshGoorah>


Current status

*

Targeted release: Fedora 8 <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8>

* Last updated: 2007-08-30
* Percentage of completion: 96%
* The 4% represents 2 missing GUIs for spice simulations (see
Dependencies section)


Detailed Description
The idea behind the Fedora's Electronic Laboratory is to provide a complete electronic laboratory setup with reliable open source design tools in order to meet one's requirements to keep one in pace with current technological race. This Electronic Laboratory can either be deployed by: 

* yum or
*

a custom Fedora spin ( work in progress
<http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/> )

The Fedora's Electronic Laboratory includes design tools for

* Analog/Digital Simulation
* Spice Simulation
* Hardware Development (VHDL,Verilog)- Modeling, Designing,
Simulation, Synthesis, Verification and Documentation
* VLSI (layout, synthesis, Finite State Machines...)
* Micro Controller (µC) Programming
*

Embedded Systems Development
<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Embedded>





VHDL-coders and integrators (0% done)
–
http://www.opencores.org/browse.cgi/by_category?filter1=&filter2=language_vhdl 





*FPGA Libre*

http://fpgalibre.sourceforge.net/intro_en.html

Goal and objectives:
The main goal of this project is to facilitate the exchange of elements necessary for project development with FPGAs.
The exchange of physical media (hardware) is complex due to the replication costs and exchange of software licensed under propietary models is usually a crime. For these reasons the project emphasize in free sofware, open source and in cores that can be redistributed under similar licenses. 

Starting from these basis, the following formal objectives are enunciated:
1. To promote the development with FPGA devices using free software or open source tools. 2. To encourage the exchange and development of IP cores using licenses that hold the same spirit of free software. 

Among all advantages of using free software we can mention:

* The ability to learn watching the source code of applications and cores.
* The possibility to freely adapt the code to special requirements of each one. * The ability to improve the code and to offer those enhancements to all the community. * Low cost. Proprietary products in this sector usually have high cost licenses or royalties. This limits and restrict their application in massive form for projects and institutions of low resources in developing countries 







Kernel module coders (0% done)
–

http://free-electrons.com/community/tools/kernelkit


KernelKit

last modified 2007-06-15 17:20
Free GNU/Linux live CD for embedded Linux systems and Linux device drivers developers. 


Description
KernelKit is a Knoppix GNU/Linux <http://knoppix.net/> derivative targetting the development of Linux kernel and drivers, as well as Free Sofware embedded systems. It is currently being used in our Embedded Linux Training <http://free-electrons.com/training> sessions. 

Differences with standard Knoppix GNU/Linux:

* Removed applications not related to Linux kernel, drivers and
embedded systems: games, office applications...
* Added tools and libraries for kernel and software development, in
particular cross-compiling toolchains for many different architectures

Usefulness

* Embedded Linux trainings: provide all the needed tools in a tested
configuration. No need to install a GNU/Linux distribution. No
need to check installed package versions prerequisites.
* Embedded Linux demonstration: helps to discover, try and
demonstrate useful tools in this technical area.
* Kernel, driver and embedded application development: toolkit to
get the job done quickly and efficiently. Useful for support
people away from their regular desktop, or for people who are not
allowed to install software by themselves.

2 kinds of deliverables

* Live CD format, like Knoppix. Easy to use without any hard disk
installation.
* Root filesystem archive. Can be used within an existing GNU/Linux
install, in an extra tool directory, or through a chroot.
Our archives are compressed with 7-zip <http://7-zip.org>, which
compresses 20% better than bzip2 in our case. Example command line
to uncompress them: |7z x -so | tar xf -|.
http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/07/21/linux-kernel-2623-to-have-stable-userspace-driver-api/ 


Linux kernel 2.6.23 to have stable userspace driver API

July 21st, 2007 — liquidat

Tux <http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquidat/163197781/>
/Linus Torvalds included patches into the mainline tree which implement a stable userspace driver API into the Linux kernel./
The stable driver API was already announced a year ago <http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/new-driver-interface-for-linux-kernel/> by Greg Kroah-Hartman. Now the last patches <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/557129> where uploaded and the API was included <http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=fc15bc817eecd5c13581adab2a182c07edededa0> in Linus’ tree. The idea of the API is to make life easier for driver developers: 

This interface allows the ability to write the majority of a driver
in userspace with only a very small shell of a driver in the kernel
itself. It uses a char device and sysfs to interact with a userspace
process to process interrupts and control memory accesses.







Ideas for new applications (never done)
–

*Whole System Optimization for Embedded Reconfigurable Processors*

http://ce.et.tudelft.nl/cecoll/slides/05/0712navarro.pdf
At UPC we developed a framework to rapid developing stand-alone applications using dynamic partial reconfiguration on Xilinx FPGAs. This framework offers a Linux-like interface to applications to access to I/O devices, file-systems and a new interface that allows partial reconfiguration on-the-flight. 






I look forward to your answer,

Best Regards,

Guillaume FORTAINE

--
"I consider life itself instinct for growth, for durability, for accumulation of forces, for power : where the will to power is lacking there is decline"

Friedrich Nietzsche


"Knowledge is Power."

Sir Francis Bacon


___________________________
partial-reconfig mailing list
partial-reconfig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mailing List Archive : http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~listarch/partial-reconfig/