Research Cluster on the use of novel hardware for real-time computing for the Digital Economy

现场可编程门阵列(FPGA)和图形处理单元(GPU)是两种计算硬件，与标准Intel和AMD处理器相比，它们在性价比和能效方面有10-100倍的改进潜力。虽然这种硬件能力已经存在多年，但直到最近才开发出软件工具，使这种权力相对容易得到强化。这项建议是为了资助一个研究集群，该集群将聚集在与现场可编程门阵列和图形处理器合作的专业计算专家，以及在关键数字经济领域、生物信息学、医学图像处理、数字媒体和计算金融工作的应用专家。互动将是双向的，计算专家将更多地了解应用程序的计算需求和挑战，应用程序专家将了解这些硬件平台提供的潜力以及在实践中实现这种潜力的挑战。将使用多种不同的机制在这群研究人员中建立社区精神，他们中的大多数人以前从未了解过彼此的工作。除了一个启动会议和一个最终会议，这两个会议都与多核和可重构超级计算会议有关，还将有3个研讨会来解决不同的具体问题。将进行一些范围划分研究，在这些研究中，计算和应用专家将共同评估现场可编程门阵列和/或图形处理器在某些应用中的潜力。将有文献评论，收集和传播关于某些关键潜在问题的最新信息。还将有本科生项目(通过其他EPSRC机制资助)，这是一种具有成本效益的方式，可以解决更多的应用领域，同时开始培养下一代计算科学家。最后，我们将有一个网站，通过这个网站，我们所有的成果都将传达给更广泛的英国研究社区。该项目的主要成果将是未来合作研究的提案，建立在该提案奠定的基础上。可能会有一个涵盖本提案所有领域的总体提案。另一种可能性是可能会有三个提案，一个是关于FPGA的，一个是关于GPU的，还有一个是关于精度和有限精度算法的常见问题的。第三种可能性是，提案将围绕生物信息学等应用主题构建。决定未来研究的最佳方法是该项目要解决的挑战之一。

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and graphical processing units (GPUs) are two kinds of computing hardware which offer the potential for factor 10-100 improvements in price/performance and enery efficiency compared to standard Intel and AMD processors. Although this hardware capability has existed for many years, it is only recently that the software tools have been developed to make it relatively easy for this power to be harnessed.This proposal is to fund a Research Cluster which will bring together computing experts who are specialists in working with FPGAs and GPUs, and application specialists working in key Digital Economy area, bioinformatics, medical image processing, digital media and computational finance. The interaction will be two-way, the computing specialists learning more about the computational needs and challenges of the applications, and the application specialists learning about the potential offered by these hardware platforms and the challenges in achieving this potential in practice.A number of different mechanisms will be used to build a community spirit amongst this group of researchers, most of whom have not previously known of each other's work. In addition to a kick-off meeting and a final meeting, both linked to a Multicore and Reconfigurable Supercomputing Conference, there will be 3 workshops to address different specific issues. There will be a number of scoping studies in which computing and application specialists will work together to assess the potential of FPGAs and/or GPUs for certain applications. There will be literature reviews which will collect and disseminate the state-of-the-art on certain key underlying issues. There will also be undergraduate student projects (funded via other EPSRC mechanisms) which are a cost effective way of tackling more application araeas and at the same time starting to train the next generation of computational scientists. Finally, there will be a website through which all of our results will be communicated to the wider UK research community.The main outcome from the project will be proposals for future collaborative research, building upon the foundations laid by this proposal. It is possible there may be one over-arching proposal covering all of the areas in this present proposal. Another possibility is that there may be three proposals, one on FPGAs, one on GPUs, and one on the common issues around accuracy and algorithms for finite precision arithmetic. A third possibility is that proposals will be constructed around an application theme, such as bio-informatics. Deciding on the best approach for future research is one of the challenges to be addressed in the project.