Report Number: CSL-TR-99-780
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Coarse Grain Carry Architecture for FPGA
Author: Lee, Hyuk-Jun
Author: Flynn, Michael
Date: February 1999
Abstract: In this report we investigated several methods to improve the performance of FPGA for general purpose computing. In the early stage of this research we identified the fine grain size of current FPGA as the major performance bottleneck. To increase the grain size, we introduced coarse grain carry architecture that can increase the granularity of arithmetic operations including addition and multiplication. We used throughput density as a cost/performance metric to justify the benefit of the new architecture. We could achieve roughly up to 5 times larger throughput density for selected applications. Along with that we also introduced a dual-rail carry structure to improve the performance of a carry chain, which usually set the cycle time of a FPGA design. A carry select adder built from the dual-rail carry structure reduces the carry chain delay by a factor of two.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/99/780/CSL-TR-99-780.pdf