geodesic -- FPGAs

I've been reading the Geodesic systems thread with much interest... I've
been playing around with FPGAs recently, Field Programmable Gate Arrays,
which list members should be familiar with due to discussions concerning
cheap hardware crypto. Why not replace your entire architecture with
reconfigurable hardware? This is sort of like Java turned upside down.
Instead of having generalized code running on a specialized "virtual
machine." (Which is inefficient as hell) Why not ship the architecture
your program runs on along with the program. Liquid architecture. If the
FPGA's are standardized (not likely, but..) you could run whatever kind of
software you wanted and the architecture would automatically reconfigure
to run the code and would be optimized for your application. There are
some challenges with muti-tasking but I think you could manage the
gate-space like you do memory. Web searches on FGPAs will bring you to
research being done on this sort of thing...

-- 
        */^\*  Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja  */^\* 
                       Decius@ninja.techwood.org

"If the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis 
for the realization of individuality, while at the same time people have 
lost those ties which gave them security... powerful tendencies arise to 
escape from freedom into submission." -- Erich Fromm

Tim replied:
>Why not replace your entire architecture with reconfigurable hardware?
>Because factors of 2 or 3 or 4 or more are still important to people.
>Witness the clamor to upgrade from 166 MHz Pentia to 200 MHz MMX Pentia,etc.
>Now tell those folks that the FPGA version will cost several times as much
>and have the performance of a 90 MHz 486. Or less.
>All for what? So they can issue a "reconfigure yourself" command and have
>their machine spend a few minutes reprogramming itself into, what, a Mac?

A machine running on a reconfigurable FPGA will need an operating system
that's not from Microsoft, so you get a factor of 4 or more back :-)
But realistically, while FPGAs may be good for running special applications,
you won't use it for random applications on different web pages;
general-purpose processors get better and better at that.
It might make an interesting peripheral, though, as DSPs once did.
LISP machines were nice, but it was much easier to stay on the
price-performance curve by tuning software better for general-purpose
machines than by using elegant software on customized hardware;
a 2:1 or 4:1 speed advantage is gone in 1-3 years, or faster if
somebody improves the compiler, and there are lots more people
improving compilers for mainstream machines than custom machines.

Over the years there have been reconfigurable machines.
VAXes used to have Writeable Control Store microcode;
other than an occasional bux fix or update to the machine,
the only people who used it were either very scary, very foolish,
or had too much time on their hands, or else they were trying to do
things that were way beyond the capabilities of the fine 1 MIPS machine
they needed.  (I used to play with virtual memory tunings,
since it's hard to get a simulation algorithm that really needs
14MB of RAM to work well in a huge 4MB machine, and the normal
virtual memory tunings got thrashed to death.  WCS is worse...)




#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#   (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)

At 3:58 AM -0700 7/21/97, Decius 6i5 wrote:
>I've been reading the Geodesic systems thread with much interest... I've
>been playing around with FPGAs recently, Field Programmable Gate Arrays,
>which list members should be familiar with due to discussions concerning
>cheap hardware crypto. Why not replace your entire architecture with
>reconfigurable hardware? This is sort of like Java turned upside down.

Why not replace your entire architecture with reconfigurable hardware?
Because factors of 2 or 3 or 4 or more are still important to people.
Witness the clamor to upgrade from 166 MHz Pentia to 200 MHz MMX Pentia,
etc.

Now tell those folks that the FPGA version will cost several times as much
and have the performance of a 90 MHz 486. Or less.

All for what? So they can issue a "reconfigure yourself" command and have
their machine spend a few minutes reprogramming itself into, what, a Mac?

For lots of reasons, this won't fly. I could elaborate on why this is so,
technically, or marketing-wise. But I'll leave this as an exercise.

One of the great breakthoughs of this century was the notion by von Neumann
and others of a general purpose engine programmable with programs, instead
of rearranging patch panel connections for each new algorithm. A general
purpose CPU able to run NT, Linux, NextStep, OS/2, and myriads of programs
is generally more useful to most people than (expensive) reconfigurable
hardware.

Except for specialized applications, which is where graphics accelerators,
I/O processors, and digital signal processors (DSPs) come to the fore.
However, even with these funcitons, as soon as these functions get
integrated onto the main processor, as time passes, the handwriting is on
the wall.

(Look at what happened to Weitek once Intel and Sun integrated floating
point coprocessors directly into their processors.)

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Scientific American had a fairly high level treatment of FPGAs recently. 
They mentioned ways they could be used in conjuction with standard CPUs. The author 
predicts that within 5 or so years, we'll be seeing hybrid systems using FPGAs in 
common use.




   
------------------------
  From: Decius 6i5 <decius@ninja.techwood.org>
  Subject: geodesic -- FPGAs 
  Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 06:58:56 -0400 (EDT) 
  To: cypherpunks@toad.com


> I've been reading the Geodesic systems thread with much interest... I've
> been playing around with FPGAs recently, Field Programmable Gate Arrays,
> which list members should be familiar with due to discussions concerning
> cheap hardware crypto. Why not replace your entire architecture with
> reconfigurable hardware? This is sort of like Java turned upside down.
> Instead of having generalized code running on a specialized "virtual
> machine." (Which is inefficient as hell) Why not ship the architecture
> your program runs on along with the program. Liquid architecture. If the
> FPGA's are standardized (not likely, but..) you could run whatever kind of
> software you wanted and the architecture would automatically reconfigure
> to run the code and would be optimized for your application. There are
> some challenges with muti-tasking but I think you could manage the
> gate-space like you do memory. Web searches on FGPAs will bring you to
> research being done on this sort of thing...
> 
> -- 
>         */^\*  Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja  */^\* 
>                        Decius@ninja.techwood.org
> 
> "If the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis 
> for the realization of individuality, while at the same time people have 
> lost those ties which gave them security... powerful tendencies arise to 
> escape from freedom into submission." -- Erich Fromm
> 

---------------End of Original Message-----------------

------------------------
Name: amp
E-mail: amp@pobox.com
Date: 07/21/97
Time: 08:02:58
Visit me at http://www.pobox.com/~amp

'Drug Trafficking Offense' is the root passphrase to the Constitution.

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