FPGA (Field programmable gate array) shines in traditional communication field and IC design field because of its hardware parallel acceleration capability and programmable characteristics. Along the way, FPGA technology is not a new hardware device, because its development threshold is too high, the release of hardware acceleration algorithm and deployment protection requirements are very high, the use of FPGA has been the beauty of high cold, not into ordinary people’s homes. As a result, the computing potential of FPGA has not been deeply tapped.
FaaS (FPGA as a Service) provides a unified hardware platform and middleware in the cloud, which can greatly reduce the development and deployment costs of accelerators. Users can directly use the acceleration service provided by the deployment accelerator provider; You can also quickly develop and deploy your own custom accelerators without needing to know the underlying hardware.
FaaS platform provides unified FPGA hardware interface Shell for all accelerator developers, helping users to solve the most difficult high-speed interface development and debugging of FPGA development in advance, such as PCIe, Fiber interface, DDR controller and so on, greatly simplifying the development time; Users can directly obtain the maximum performance of the hardware platform and FPGA interface, and the hardware platform performance will not be wasted due to the lack of team development ability and experience.
Under the premise of providing a unified interface to provide security and convenience, Ali Cloud FaaS also tries its best to ensure the flexibility and rapidity of user design, and the concept of Role arises at the right moment. Role is in a dynamic area. Different from Shell, users can change part of Role at any time as required. This combination of Shell + Role ensures the lightest weight of Shell, greatly improves the convenience of development and greatly shortens the development time.
Corresponding to Shell and Role, FaaS also provides corresponding drivers and software libraries on the server side, providing unified and flexible software support for users, such as DMA drivers, register access drivers and so on.
If the traditional FPGA development starts from hardware design, it needs to go through a long hardware cycle such as principle design, PCB design, PCB production and assembly test. In the logic design stage, also need to start from the board debugging, interface debugging, driver development and other low-level work; Once this is done, open energy can begin normal logic development work.
Ali FaaS platform greatly simplifies the whole FPGA design process. Use FaaS instances without hardware cycles; Logic design stage, can also directly skip board start debugging and interface debugging, can directly start user logic design; Moreover, the provision of roles can simplify or omit the design of some user logic.
Click on the link to experience the product for free
The original link