Exploring the Acceleration of the Met Office NERC Cloud Model Using FPGAs
Exploring the Acceleration of the Met Office NERC Cloud Model Using FPGAs
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探索使用 FPGA 加速英国气象局 NERC 云模型
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Nick Brown
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Nick Brown
使用现场可编程门阵列（FPGA）来加速计算核心有可能对科学代码以及整个高性能计算（HPC）社区带来极大的益处。随着FPGA编程技术的最新发展，移植核心的能力变得更容易实现。然而，要从这项技术中获得合理的性能，仅仅将代码转移到FPGA上是不够的，相反，必须重新思考算法，并以数据流方式重新设计，以适应目标架构。在本文中，我们描述了通过高层次综合（HLS）将英国气象局自然环境研究委员会云模型（MONC）——一种被气候和天气研究人员使用的大气模型——中计算强度最高的核心之一移植到FPGA上的过程。我们详细描述了为使算法适应架构而采取的步骤以及这对核心性能的影响。使用带有板载动态随机存取存储器（DRAM）的通过PCIe接口连接的FPGA，我们考虑在更大的基础设施中集成这个核心，并针对涉及非常大网格的问题规模，探索我们的方法与在现代高性能计算机中流行的英特尔CPU相比的性能特征。这项工作的结果是一份经验报告，详细阐述了在将这个复杂的计算核心移植到FPGA时面临的挑战和学到的经验教训，以及探索了FPGA在加速传统高性能计算工作负载方面可以发挥的作用及其基本限制。
The use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to accelerate computational kernels has the potential to be of great benefit to scientific codes and the HPC community in general. With the recent developments in FPGA programming technology, the ability to port kernels is becoming far more accessible. However, to gain reasonable performance from this technology it is not enough to simple transfer a code onto the FPGA, instead the algorithm must be rethought and recast in a data-flow style to suit the target architecture. In this paper we describe the porting, via HLS, of one of the most computationally intensive kernels of the Met Office NERC Cloud model (MONC), an atmospheric model used by climate and weather researchers, onto an FPGA. We describe in detail the steps taken to adapt the algorithm to make it suitable for the architecture and the impact this has on kernel performance. Using a PCIe mounted FPGA with on-board DRAM, we consider the integration on this kernel within a larger infrastructure and explore the performance characteristics of our approach in contrast to Intel CPUs that are popular in modern HPC machines, over problem sizes involving very large grids. The result of this work is an experience report detailing the challenges faced and lessons learnt in porting this complex computational kernel to FPGAs, as well as exploring the role that FPGAs can play and their fundamental limits in accelerating traditional HPC workloads.
将 LFRic 天气和气候模型移植到 EuroExa 架构 FPGA 的第一步
影响因子：
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作者：
Ashworth M
通讯作者：
Ashworth M