Kernel Location Constraints - 2024.1 English - UG1603

When building large graphs with multiple subgraphs, it is sometimes useful to control the exact mapping of kernels to AI Engine-MLs, either relative to other kernels or in an absolute sense. The AI Engine compiler provides a mechanism to specify location constraints for kernels, which when used with the C++ template class specification, provides a powerful mechanism to create a robust, scalable, and predictable mapping of your graph onto the AI Engine-ML array. It also reduces the choices for the mapper to try, which can considerably speed up the mapper. Consider the following graph specification:

#include <adf.h>
#include "kernels.h
#define NUMCORES (COLS*ROWS)
using namespace adf;

template <int COLS, int ROWS, int STARTCOL, int STARTROW>
class indep_nodes_graph1 : public graph {
 public:
   kernel kr[NUMCORES];
   port<input> datain[NUMCORES] ;
   port<output> dataout[NUMCORES] ;
  
 indep_nodes_graph1() {
  for (int i = 0; i < COLS; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < ROWS; j++) {
      int k = i*ROWS + j;
      kr[k] = kernel::create(mykernel);
      source(kr[k])  = "kernels/kernel.cc";
      runtime<ratio>(kr[k]) = 0.9;
      location<kernel>(kr[k]) = tile(STARTCOL+i, STARTROW+j);
    }
  }
  for (int i = 0; i < NUMCORES; i++) {
    connect(datain[i], kr[i].in[0]);
    connect(kr[i].out[0], dataout[i]);
  }
 };
};

The template parameters identify a COLS x ROWS logical array of kernels (COLS x ROWS = NUMCORES) that are placed within a larger logical device of some dimensionality starting at (STARTCOL, STARTROW) as the origin. Each kernel in that graph is constrained to be placed on a specific AI Engine-ML. This is accomplished using an absolute location constraint for each kernel placing it on a specific processor tile. For example, the following declaration would create a 1 x 2 kernel array starting at offset (3,2). When embedded within a 4 x 4 logical device topology, the kernel array is constrained to the top right corner.

indep_nodes_graph1<1,2,3,2> mygraph;