Massively Parallel Processor Architectures for Resource-aware Computing

Abstract: We present a class of massively parallel processor architectures called invasive tightly coupled processor arrays (TCPAs). The presented processor class is a highly parameterizable template, which can be tailored before runtime to fulfill costumers' requirements such as performance, area cost, and energy efficiency. These programmable accelerators are well suited for domain-specific computing from the areas of signal, image, and video processing as well as other streaming processing applications. To overcome future scaling issues (e.g., power consumption, reliability, resource management, as well as application parallelization and mapping), TCPAs are inherently designed in a way to support self-adaptivity and resource awareness at hardware level. Here, we follow a recently introduced resource-aware parallel computing paradigm called invasive computing where an application can dynamically claim, execute, and release resources. Furthermore, we show how invasive computing can be used as an enabler for power management. Finally, we will introduce ideas on how to realize fault-tolerant loop execution on such massively parallel architectures through employing on-demand spatial redundancies at the processor array level.