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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9

SODA Synthesizer: an Open-source, Multi-level, Modular, Extensible Compiler from High-level Frameworks to Silicon

The SODA Synthesizer is an open-source modular, end-to-end hardware compiler framework. The SODA frontend, developed in MLIR, performs system-level design, code partitioning, and high-level optimizations to prepare the specifications for the hardware synthesis. The backend is based on a state-of-the-art high-level synthesis tool, and generates the final hardware design. The backend can interface with logic synthesis tools for field programmable gate arrays or with commercial and open-source logic synthesis tools for application-specific integrated circuits. We discuss the opportunities and challenges in integrating with commercial and open-source tools both at the frontend and backend, and the unique opportunities that an open-source hardware design ecosystem provides.

Bohm Agostini, Nicolas↗

Automatic Qubit Characterization and Gate Optimization with QubiC

As the size and complexity of a quantum computer increases, quantum bit (qubit) characterization and gate optimization become complex and time-consuming tasks. Current calibration techniques require complicated and verbose measurements to tune up qubits and gates, which cannot easily expand to the large-scale quantum systems. We develop a concise and automatic calibration protocol to characterize qubits and optimize gates using QubiC, which is an open source FPGA (field-programmable gate array) based control and measurement system for superconducting quantum information processors. We propose multi-dimensional loss-based optimization of single-qubit gates and full XY-plane measurement method for the two-qubit CNOT gate calibration. We demonstrate the QubiC automatic calibration protocols are capable of delivering high-fidelity gates on the state-of-the-art transmon-type processor operating at the Advanced Quantum Testbed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Finally, the single-qubit and two-qubit Clifford gate infidelities measured by randomized benchmarking are of 4.9(1.1) × 10 -4 and 1.4(3) × 10 -2 , respectively.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Towards On-Chip Learning for Low Latency Reasoning with End-to-End Synthesis

The Software Defined Architectures (SODA) Synthesizer is an open-source compiler-based tool able to automatically generate domain-specialized systems targeting Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) or Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) starting from high-level programming. SODA is composed of a frontend, SODA-OPT, which leverages the multilevel intermediate representation (MLIR) framework to interface with productive programming tools (e.g., machine learning frame-works), identify kernels suitable for acceleration, and perform high-level optimizations, and of a state-of-the-art high-level synthesis backend, Bambu from the PandA framework, to generate custom accelerators. One specific application of the SODA Synthesizer is the generation of accelerators to enable ultra-low latency inference and control on autonomous systems for scientific discovery (e.g., electron microscopes, sensors in particle accelerators, etc.). This paper provides an overview of the flow in the context of the generation of accelerators for edge processing to be integrated in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) devices, focusing on use cases from precision material synthesis. We show the tool in action with an example of design space exploration for inference on reconfigurable devices with a conventional deep neural network model (LeNet). Finally, we discuss the research directions and opportunities enabled by SODA in the area of autonomous control for scientific experimental workflows.

Castellana, Vito G.↗

FiberFlex: Real-time FPGA-based Intelligent and Distributed Fiber Sensor System for Pedestrian Recognition

In recent years, security monitoring of public places and critical infrastructure has heavily relied on the widespread use of cameras, raising concerns about personal privacy violations. To balance the need for effective security monitoring with the protection of personal privacy, we explore the potential of optical fiber sensors for this application. This article proposes FiberFlex, an intelligent and distributed fiber sensor system. Ultizing Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) high-level synthesis (HLS) acceleration, FiberFlex offers real-time pedestrian detection by co-designing the entire pipeline of optical signal acquisition, processing, and recognition networks based on the principles of optical fiber sensing. As a promising alternative to traditional camera-based monitoring systems, FiberFlex achieves pedestrian detection by analyzing the vibration patterns caused by pedestrian footsteps, enabling security monitoring while preserving individual privacy. FiberFlex comprises three modules: First , fiber-optic sensing system: A fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) system is built and used to measure the ground vibration waves generated by people walking. Second , algorithms: We first collect the training data by measuring the ground vibration waves, label the data, and use the data to train the neural network models to perform pedestrian recognition. Third , hardware accelerators: We use HLS tools to design hardware modules on FPGA for data collection and pre-processing and integrate them with the downstream neural network accelerators to perform in-line real-time pedestrian detection. The final detection results are sent back from FPGA to the host CPU. We implement our system FiberFlex with the in-house built DAS system and AMD/Xilinx Kintex7 FPGA KC705 board and verify the whole system using the real-world collected data. We conduct recognition tests on five test subjects of varying ages, heights, and weights in a fixed sensing area. Each subject experienced 20 real-time recognition tests using their daily walking habits, and the subjects were given adequate rest between tests. After 100 tests on five test subjects, the overall real-time recognition accuracy exceeded \(88.0\%\) . The whole system uses 55 W of power, 33 W in the optical DAS system and 22 W in the FPGA. Relying on its end-to-end interdisciplinary design, FiberFlex seamlessly combines fiber-optic sensors with FPGA accelerators to enable low-power real-time security monitoring without compromising privacy, making it a valuable addition to the existing security monitoring network. According to FiberFlex, more valuable research can be conducted in the future, such as fall monitoring for the elderly, migration of identification networks between different application scenarios, and improvement of anti-interference performance in more complex environments. In future perception networks, where the “eyes” are not feasible, let’s use fiber optic touch instead.

Distributed↗

Far-infrared tangential interferometer/polarimeter design and installation for NSTX-U

The Far-infrared Tangential Interferometer/Polarimeter (FIReTIP) system has been refurbished and is being reinstalled on the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) to supply real-time line-integrated core electron density measurements for use in the NSTX-U plasma control system (PCS) to facilitate real-time density feedback control of the NSTX-U plasma. Inclusion of a visible light heterodyne interferometer in the FIReTIP system allows for real-time vibration compensation due to movement of an internally mounted retroreflector and the FIReTIP front-end optics. Real-time signal correction is achieved through use of a National Instruments CompactRIO field-programmable gate array.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

IonControl v. 1.0

The IonControl software is a set of python scripts and Field-Programmable-Gate-Array (FPGA) code designed to control a trapped ion research experiment. It enables one to generate the pulses (time resolution: 20ns) necessary to control the quantum states of trapped ions and allows one to collect and analyze measurement results from trapped ion systems.

Maunz, Peter↗

Qubit Control System (QubiC) v1.0

We design a modular FPGA (field-programmable gate array) based system called QubiC to control and measure a superconducting quantum processing unit. The system includes room temperature electronics hardware, FPGA gateware, and engineering software.

Huang, Gang↗

LBNL BPM Firmware (CAL-BPM) v1.0

CAL-BPM is the firmware code base of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) Beam Position Monitor (BPM) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based electronics.

Norum, William↗

Dual Active Bridge based DC Transformer LabVIEW FPGA Control Code [SWR-16-25]

In the area of power electronics control, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have the capability to outperform their Digital Signal Processor (DSP) counterparts due to the FPGA’s ability to implement true parallel processing and therefore facilitate higher switching frequencies, higher control bandwidth, and/or enhanced functionality. National Instruments (NI) has developed two platforms, Compact RIO (cRIO) and Single Board RIO (sbRIO), which combine a real-time processor with an FPGA. The FPGA can be programmed with a subset of the well-known LabVIEW graphical programming language. The candidate software implements complete control algorithms in LabVIEW FPGA for a DC Transformer (DCX) based on a dual active bridge (DAB). A DCX is an isolated bi-directional DC-DC converter designed to operate at unity conversion ratio, M, defined by where Vin is the primary-side DC bus voltage, Vout is the secondary-side DC bus voltage, and n is the turns ratio of the embedded high frequency transformer (HFX). The DCX based on a DAB incorporates two H-bridges, a resonant inductor, and an HFX to provide this functionality. The candidate software employs phase-shift modulation of the two H-bridges and a feedback loop to regulate the conversion ratio at unity. The software also includes alarm-handling capabilities as well as debugging and tuning tools. The software fits on the Xilinx Virtex V LX110 FPGA embedded in the NI cRIO-9118 FPGA chassis, and with a 40 MHz base clock, supports a modulation update rate of 40 MHz, and user-settable switching frequencies and synchronized control loop update rates of tens of kHz.

Source record↗

Three-phase Four-leg Inverter LabVIEW FPGA Control Code [SWR-16-26]

In the area of power electronics control, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have the capability to outperform their Digital Signal Processor (DSP) counterparts due to the FPGA’s ability to implement true parallel processing and therefore facilitate higher switching frequencies, higher control bandwidth, and/or enhanced functionality. National Instruments (NI) has developed two platforms, Compact RIO (cRIO) and Single Board RIO (sbRIO), which combine a real-time processor with an FPGA. The FPGA can be programmed with a subset of the well-known LabVIEW graphical programming language. The use of cRIO and sbRIO for power electronics control has developed over the last few years to include control of three-phase inverters. Most three-phase inverter topologies include three switching legs. The addition of a fourth-leg to natively generate the neutral connection allows the inverter to serve single-phase loads in a microgrid or stand-alone power system and to balance the three-phase voltages in the presence of significant load imbalance. However, the control of a four-leg inverter is much more complex. In particular, instead of standard two-dimensional space vector modulation (SVM), the inverter requires three-dimensional space vector modulation (3D-SVM). The candidate software implements complete control algorithms in LabVIEW FPGA for a three-phase four-leg inverter. The software includes feedback control loops, three-dimensional space vector modulation gate-drive algorithms, advanced alarm handling capabilities, contactor control, power measurements, and debugging and tuning tools. The feedback control loops allow inverter operation in AC voltage control, AC current control, or DC bus voltage control modes based on external mode selection by a user or supervisory controller. The software includes the ability to synchronize its AC output to the grid or other voltage-source before connection. The software also includes provisions to allow inverter operation in parallel with other voltage regulating devices on the AC or DC buses. This flexibility allows the Inverter to operate as a stand-alone voltage source, connected to the grid, or in parallel with other controllable voltage sources as part of a microgrid or remote power system. In addition, as the inverter is expected to operate under severe unbalanced conditions, the software includes algorithms to accurately compute real and reactive power for each phase based on definitions provided in the IEEE Standard 1459: IEEE Standard Definitions for the Measurement of Electric Power Quantities Under Sinusoidal, Nonsinusoidal, Balanced, or Unbalanced Conditions. Finally, the software includes code to output analog signals for debugging and for tuning of control loops. The software fits on the Xilinx Virtex V LX110 FPGA embedded in the NI cRIO-9118 FPGA chassis, and with a 40 MHz base clock, supports a modulation update rate of 40 MHz, user-settable switching frequencies and synchronized control loop update rates of tens of kHz, and reference waveform generation, including Phase Lock Loop (PLL), update rate of 100 kHz.

Martin, Gregory↗

Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit Defect Arbitrary Waveform Generator (QICKDAWG) v.0

SAND2024-08598O The Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit Defect Arbitrary Waveform Generator (QICKDAWG) characterizes nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond and other defects. It does this by using a radio frequency system-on-a-chip (RFSoC) field programmable gate array (FPGA). QICKDAWG synthesizes microwave pulses from the RFSoC to change the spin state of the defects. The software also allows for laser control using the RFSoC, which optically pumps defects. Ultimately, QICKDAWG supports the implementation of RFSoC FPGAs in defect characterization. This replaces the slow, expensive, traditional hardware, thus lowering the cost and time for defect characterization. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

SciDAC↗

Sentinel

Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are commonplace in network security but they frequently employ algorithms that are computational demanding requiring hardware and software with significant power requirements. Two examples of such resource-intensive algorithms used for network security are regular expression matching and broader signature pattern matching which are commonly used in deep packet inspection (DPI). Network security algorithms that have large power requirements may be a challenge for low-power internet-of-things (IoT) environments, which generally lack the power resources to implement complex security measures like computationally expensive DPI at the edge. Furthermore, IoT environments incorporating 5G standalone networks have network latency constraints beyond just power that make DPI at the edge even more difficult. Programmable logic is ideally suited for machine learning inference for DPI because of its deep instruction level parallelism and single-cycle memory access. Machine learning approaches for DPI have been explored before using the programmable logic of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) as a potential solution for NIDS approaches that would be power-suitable for IoT. However, those previous programmable logic NIDS approaches utilize either a supervised or unsupervised learning model. Sentinel utilizes the ensemble of these two machine learning approaches known as a semi-supervised approach which has shown promise in NIDS implementations. Sentinel provides a programmable logic implementation of a semi-supervised approach for DPI which operates at much lower power and latency than a GPU implementation with negligible loss of accuracy due to quantization through a logistic regressor.

Anderson, MatthewW [Idaho National Laboratory (INL↗

Code Generators for Floating-Point Unit Design in Integrated Circuits (OpenFloat) v1.0

This IP provides a comprehensive set of code generators for various floating-point units (FPUs) essential for integrated circuit design and integration, targeting a broad spectrum of applications, including machine learning and scientific computing. The suite includes FP adders, multipliers, subtractors, dividers, reciprocals, exponentials, square roots, trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, arctangent), and more. It supports customizable hardware design parameters, such as precision (16, 32, 64, and 128 bits) and pipeline depths, offering users enhanced flexibility and productivity. The generated code is in an industry-standard hardware description language, ensuring compatibility with standard design flows, including simulation, verification, synthesis, and implementation on both field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

Shalf, JohnM. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborato↗

Abisko: Deep codesign of an architecture for spiking neural networks using novel neuromorphic materials

The Abisko project aims to develop an energy-efficient spiking neural network (SNN) computing architecture and software system capable of autonomous learning and operation. The SNN architecture explores novel neuromorphic devices that are based on resistive-switching materials, such as memristors and electrochemical RAM. Equally important, Abisko uses a deep codesign approach to pursue this goal by engaging experts from across the entire range of disciplines: materials, devices and circuits, architectures and integration, software, and algorithms. Here, the key objectives of our Abisko project are threefold. First, we are designing an energy-optimized high-performance neuromorphic accelerator based on SNNs. This architecture is being designed as a chiplet that can be deployed in contemporary computer architectures and we are investigating novel neuromorphic materials to improve its design. Second, we are concurrently developing a productive software stack for the neuromorphic accelerator that will also be portable to other architectures, such as field-programmable gate arrays and GPUs. Third, we are creating a new deep codesign methodology and framework for developing clear interfaces, requirements, and metrics between each level of abstraction to enable the system design to be explored and implemented interchangeably with execution, measurement, a model, or simulation. As a motivating application for this codesign effort, we target the use of SNNs for an analog event detector for a high-energy physics sensor.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Real-time data analysis for medical diagnosis using FPGA-accelerated neural networks

Real-time analysis of patient data during medical procedures can provide vital diagnostic feedback that significantly improves chances of success. With sensors becoming increasingly fast, frameworks such as Deep Neural Networks are required to perform calculations within the strict timing constraints for real-time operation. However, traditional computing platforms responsible for running these algorithms incur a large overhead due to communication protocols, memory accesses, and static (often generic) architectures. In this work, we implement a low-latency Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) processor using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Unlike CPUs and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), our FPGA-based design can directly interface sensors, storage devices, display devices and even actuators, thus reducing the delays of data movement between ports and compute pipelines. Moreover, the compute pipelines themselves are tailored specifically to the application, improving resource utilization and reducing idle cycles. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach using mass-spectrometry data sets for real-time cancer detection. We demonstrate that correct parameter sizing, based on the application, can reduce latency by 20% on average. Furthermore, we show that in an application with tightly coupled data-path and latency constraints, having a large amount of computing resources can actually reduce performance. Using mass-spectrometry benchmarks, we show that our proposed FPGA design outperforms both CPU and GPU implementations, with an average speedup of 144x and 21x, respectively. In our work, we demonstrate the importance of application-specific optimizations in order to minimize latency and maximize resource utilization for MLP inference. By directly interfacing and processing sensor data with ultra-low latency, FPGAs can perform real-time analysis during procedures and provide diagnostic feedback that can be critical to achieving higher percentages of successful patient outcomes.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Optical networking within the Lightwave Energy-Efficient Datacenter project [Invited]

The Lightwave Energy-Efficient Datacenter (LEED) project within the ARPA-e ENLITENED program is developing novel energy-efficient multichannel lightwave networks. These networks are enabled by a new optical “rotor” switch that can reconfigure the network topology in less than 20 µs and a field-programmable-gate-array-based network interface controller called Corundum that can provide precise network-wide synchronization of packets admitted into the lightwave network. Here we review the optical networking research within LEED and discuss future directions.

Mellette, William M.↗

Evaluation of the Single-precision Floatingpoint Vector Add Kernel Using the Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL

Open Computing Language (OpenCL) is a high-level language that enables software programmers to explore Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for application acceleration. The Intel FPGA software development kit (SDK) for OpenCL allows a user to specify applications at a high level and explore the performance of low-level hardware acceleration. In this report, we present the FPGA performance and power consumption results of the single-precision floating-point vector add OpenCL kernel using the Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL on the Nallatech 385A FPGA board. The board features an Arria 10 FPGA. We evaluate the FPGA implementations using the compute unit duplication and kernel vectorization optimization techniques. On the Nallatech 385A FPGA board, the maximum compute kernel bandwidth we achieve is 25.8 GB/s, approximately 76% of the peak memory bandwidth. The power consumption of the FPGA device when running the kernels ranges from 29W to 42W.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗