OpenCL Altera SDK v.14.0 vs. v. 13.1 Benchmarks Study

Altera SDK for OpenCL allows programmers to write a simple code in OpenCL and abstracts all Field programmable gate array (FPGA) design complexity. The kernels are synthesized to equivalent circuits using the FPGA hardware recourses: Adaptive logic modules (ALMs), DSPs and Memory blocks. In this study, we developed a set of fifteen different benchmarks, each of which has its own characteristics. Benchmarks include with/without loop unrolling, have/have not atomic operations, have one/multiple kernels per single file, and in addition to one/more of these characteristics are combined. Altera OpenCL v14.0 adds more features compared with previous versions. A set of parameters chosen to compare the two OpenCL SDK versions: Logic utilization (in ALMs), total registers, RAM Blocks, total block memory bits, and clock frequency.