ShrinkWrap: Compiler-Enabled Optimization and Customization of Soft Memory Interconnects

Abstract

Today's FPGAs lack dedicated on-chip memory interconnects, requiring users to (1) rely on inefficient, general-purpose solutions, or (2) tediously create an application-specific memory interconnect for each target platform. The CoRAM architecture, which offers a general-purpose abstraction for FPGA memory management, encodes high-level application information that can be exploited to generate customized soft memory interconnects. This paper describes the ShrinkWrap Compiler, which analyzes a CoRAM application for its connectivity and bandwidth requirements, enabling synthesis of highly-tuned area-efficient soft memory interconnects.