Keep the Device Kernels Utilized - 2022.1 English

Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393)

Document ID
UG1393
Release Date
2022-05-25
Version
2022.1 English

Kernels might be present in the device, but they will only run when the application requests them. To maximize performance, engineer the application so that it will keep the kernels busy.

Conceptually, this is achieved by issuing the next requests before the current ones have completed. This results in pipelined and overlapping execution, leading to kernels being optimally utilized, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. Pipelined Execution of Accelerators

In this example, the original application repeatedly calls func1, func2 and func3. Corresponding kernels (K1, K2, K3) have been created for the three functions. A naïve implementation would have the three kernels running sequentially, like the original software application does. However, this means that each kernel is active only a third of the time. A better approach is to structure the software application so that it can issue pipelined requests to the kernels. This allows K1 to start processing a new data set at the same time K2 starts processing the first output of K1. With this approach, the three kernels are constantly running with maximized utilization.

More information on software pipelining can be found in the Vitis Application Acceleration Development Flow Tutorials.