Heinz Nixdorf Institute

Research

• Design space explorations for a data parallel application called Self Organizing Maps
• Performance comparison of in-house developed multiprocessor architectures with Tensilica's XTMP multiprocessor simulation environment
• Investigations with application specific impact o multiple Xtensa processors using a common shared memory
• Performance comparison of data-parallel application mapped on Xtensa processors with FPGA implementation
• Design space explorations for algorithms used in Elliptic Curve Cryptography (1)
• Program partitioning and co-ordination using multiple Xtensa processors, which has been mapped to our reconfigurable multiprocessor (2)

Reference
1. Gorla, Elisa and Puttmann, Christoph and Shokrollahi, J. : "Explicit Formulas for Efficient Multiplication in GF(3^6m)", SAC'07: Proceedings of the 14th Annual Workshop on Selected Areas in Cryptography, 2007
2. Purnaprajna, Madhura, Puttmann, Christoph and Porrmann, Mario: "Power Aware Reconfigurable Multiprocessor for Elliptic Curve Cryptography", accepted for publication at 2008 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE 2008)

Outline of Curriculum and Courses

In the last semester, exercises using Tensilica's tools in the course titled "Embedded System Design" were demonstrated. Tensilica's tutorials were used to give the students an overview to use the tools and implement small examples. About 15 students undertook this course and the following exercises were conducted:

• Design space exploration using Tensilica's base architecture for time and power optimization, for GF(2^{233} multiplier used in Elliptic Curve Cryptography
• Analyzing performance trade-off - Speedup vs. Energy savings
• Optimizing cache architecture using Energy Xplorer
• Generating Instruction Set Extensions using both XPRES and using Tensilica's Instruction Extension TIE, which are both time and power efficient
• Introducing TIE instructions to explore design trade-offs between area, timing and power.

The same is planned for the next semester, with a new application - called Self Organizing Maps.

Heinz Nixdorf Institute's URL

Heinz Nixdorf Institute's System & Circuit Technology department's URL