An FPGA Implementation of A Portable DNA Sequencing Device Based on RISC-V

Miniature and mobile DNA sequencers are steadily growing in popularity as effective tools for genetics research. As basecalling algorithms continue to evolve, basecalling poses a serious challenge for small computing devices despite its increasing accuracy. Although general-purpose computing chips such as CPUs and GPUs can achieve fast results, they are not energy efficient enough for mobile applications. This paper presents an innovative solution, a basecalling hardware architecture based on RISC-V ISA, and after validation with our custom FPGA verification platform, it demonstrates a 1.95x energy efficiency ratio compared to x86. There is also a 38% improvement in energy efficiency ratio compared to ARM. In addition, this study also completes the verification work for subsequent ASIC designs.