SMYLE OpenCL: A programming framework for embedded many-core SoCs

Abstract

Embedded SoC architecture has shifted from single-core to multi/many-core paradigm because of better power/performance efficiency. In order to exploit the potential power/performance efficiency of the many-core architecture, a parallel computing framework is necessary. OpenCL is one of the most popular parallel computing frameworks in the field of general-purpose computing on GPUs and multicore servers. However, the existing OpenCL implementations are not suitable to embedded real-time systems because of the large runtime overhead. In this paper, we describe a lightweight OpenCL framework for embedded multi/many-core SoCs. Our OpenCL framework minimizes the runtime overhead by statically creating threads and mapping them onto cores. Preliminary experiments on an FPGA prototype board with a five-core architecture shows a significant reduction in runtime overhead compared with an existing OpenCL framework.