Apply Loop Unrolling - 2024.1 English

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

Document ID
UG1393
Release Date
2024-07-03
Version
2024.1 English

Loop unrolling unwinds the loop, allowing multiple iterations of the loop to be executed together, reducing the loop’s overall trip count.

In the industrial analogy, factories are kernels, assembly lines are dataflow pipelines, and stations are compute functions. Unrolling creates stations which can process multiple objects arriving at the same time on the conveyer belt, which results in higher performance.

Figure 1. Loop Unrolling

Loop unrolling can widen the resulting datapath by the corresponding factor. This usually increases the bandwidth requirements as more samples are processed in parallel. This has two implications:

  • The width of the function I/Os must match the width of the datapath and vice versa.
  • No additional benefit is gained by loop unrolling and widening the datapath to the point where I/O requirements exceed the maximum size of a kernel port (512 bits / 64 bytes).

The following guidelines will help optimize the use of loop unrolling:

  • Start from the innermost loop within a loop nest.
  • Assess which unroll factor would eliminate all loop-carried dependencies.
  • For more efficient results, unroll loops with fixed trip counts.
  • If there are function calls within the unrolled loop, in-lining these functions can improve results through better resource sharing, although at the expense of longer synthesis times. Note also that the interconnect may become increasingly complex and lead to routing problems later on.
  • Do not blindly unroll loops. Always unroll loops with a specific outcome in mind.