SPACE PRESENTS A CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT FOR COMPUTING. EXTENDED DEVELOPMENT TIMES AND RADIATION TOLERANCE…

Public award description

SPACE PRESENTS A CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT FOR COMPUTING. EXTENDED DEVELOPMENT TIMES AND RADIATION TOLERANCE REQUIREMENTS LEAVE HARDWARE PERFORMANCE A DECADE OR MORE BEHIND THE TERRESTRIAL STATE-OF-THE-ART AT THE TIME OF DEPLOYMENT. ADDITIONALLY, ONCE DEPLOYED, HARDWARE CHANGES ARE IMPRACTICAL, ENCOURAGING A TREND TOWARDS INCREASED SOFTWARE PROGRAMMABILITY. HOWEVER, TOPSIDE PRESSURE FROM APPLICATION ADVANCEMENTS ARE FORCING SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS TO IMPROVE THROUGHPUT AND LATENCY WHILE REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION. A POPULAR APPROACH TO ADDRESSING THE TENSION BETWEEN THESE REQUIREMENTS IS THE HETEROGENEOUS PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE. BY PROVIDING MULTIPLE HARDWARE TOOLS THAT OPTIMALLY SUPPORT A SUBSET OF THE ANTICIPATED WORKLOAD, A HETEROGENEOUS ARCHITECTURE CAN OFFER A DIVERSE PROCESSING TOOLSET TO THE APPLICATION DEVELOPER. HOWEVER, PROGRAMMING THESE SYSTEMS IS EXTREMELY CHALLENGING BECAUSE OF VARIATIONS IN TOOLSETS AND DATA SHARING INTERFACES. AS A RESULT, DATA SHARING AND DYNAMIC WORKLOAD SCHEDULING ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS ARCHITECTURES IS OFTEN SUBOPTIMAL AND HINDERED BY POOR SCALABILITY. MAXENTRIC PROPOSES TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM WITH RUSH, A HETEROGENEOUS PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE WITH A UNIFIED PROGRAMMING MODEL FOR RAPID DEVELOPMENT. RUSH EMPLOYS A RAD-HARD MULTICORE PROCESSOR AS A HOST AND AN FPGA AS AN ACCELERATOR CHIP. THE RUSH SOFTWARE LAYER UNIFIES THESE ARCHITECTURES THROUGH AN INNOVATIVE PROGRAMMING MODEL DESCRIBED IN THE PROPOSAL.