Execution modeling in self-aware FPGA-based architectures for efficient resource management

SRAM-based FPGAs have significantly improved their performance and size with the use of newer and ultra-deep-submicron technologies, even though power consumption, together with a time-consuming initial configuration process, are still major concerns when targeting energy-efficient solutions. System self-awareness enables the use of strategies to enhance system performance and power optimization taking into account run-time metrics. This is of particular importance when dealing with reconfigurable systems that may make use of such information for efficient resource management, such as in the case of the ARTICo³ architecture, which fosters dynamic execution of kernels formed by multiple blocks of threads allocated in a variable number of hardware accelerators, combined with module redundancy for fault tolerance and other dependability enhancements, e.g. side-channel-attack protection. In this paper, a model for efficient dynamic resource management focused on both power consumption and execution times in the ARTICo³ architecture is proposed. The approach enables the characterization of kernel execution by using the model, providing additional decision criteria based on energy efficiency, so that resource allocation and scheduling policies may adapt to changing conditions. Two different platforms have been used to validate the proposal and show the generalization of the model: a high-performance wireless sensor node based on a Spartan-6 and a standard off-the-shelf development board based on a Kintex-7.