3D tomography back-projection parallelization on FPGAs using opencl

Abstract

This paper deals with the evaluation of FPGAs resurgence for hardware acceleration applied to computed tomography on the back-projection operator used in iterative reconstruction algorithms. We focus our attention on the tools developed by FPGAs manufacturers, in particular the Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL, that promises a new level of hardware abstraction from the developer's perspective, allowing a software-like programming of FPGAs. For this purpose, we start with evaluating different custom OpenCL implementations of the back-projection algorithm. With some clues on memory fetching and coalescing, we then further tune designs to improve performance. Finally, a comparison is made with GPU implementations, and a preliminary conclusion is drawn on FPGAs future in computed tomography.