Performance metrics for configurable computing

Summary form only given. Metrics determine what kind of conclusions may be drawn from benchmark results, and also affect how benchmarks must be performed. The metrics in use in scientific computing benchmarks address mainly four questions: 1. How can a given algorithm be characterized? 2. How good is an algorithm to solve a problem on a given implementation? 3. How good is a machine across multiple problems? and 4. How effectively does an implementation algorithm combination scale? When evaluating architectural and packaging options for an architecture, one commonly encounters the problem of meeting performance requirements within the constraints of weight, volume and power envelope as well as the amount of computation performance that can be realized with a given physical envelope. This assessment process can be guided by a metric that we have found to be relatively consistent in past applications. It incorporates throughput in million operations per second (MOPS), weight (and implicitly volume) in kilograms, and power in watts. The MOPS/(kg.watt) ratio has been used to evaluate technology and packaging tradeoffs