OpenFPGA Membership |
HeadlinesUpcoming Events of InterestReconfigurable Systems Summer Institute a Success Working Group Updates Membership and Organization Updates OpenFPGA Interest Survey Upcoming Events of Interest [Back to top] 2006 MAPLD International Conference FPGAworld 2006 Reconfigurable Systems Summer Institute a Success [Back to top] The 2006 Reconfigurable Systems Summer Institute (RSSI) held at NCSA the week of July 10 served as a tremendous opportunity for networking among FPGA solution providers and users alike. Attended by 90 plus participants, the weeklong series of workshops, presentations, posters and discussions related to FPGA applications proved a visible testament to progress made in the past year. With program tracks on applications, libraries, systems, compilers and frameworks, the institute blended multiple perspectives which culminated in lively discussions among OpenFPGA working groups. To view the program and presentations in detail, visit: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/RSSI/agenda.html To view summary notes on the OpenFPGA working group BOF sessions, visit Working Group Updates [Back to top] The working groups have been hard at work through the summer. Plans are in various stages of development and avenues have been explored, all working to make it easier to put high-performance FPGA technology to work in general applications. Almost universally, addressing the issues of resources and narrowing focus is proving to be the most beneficial to aiding their progress. While the individual groups are making progress in narrowing focus, OpenFPGA as an organization is working to build support for the working group efforts, from within and beyond the immediate community. Significant developments have occurred in the working groups: T-CORELIB: has been working to establish standard interfaces and approaches at the core level to achieve interoperability. The group has identified top priorities to make this a reality and are putting plans together to make it happen. T-APPLIB : is working to develop portable application oriented libraries with performance boosted by FPGAs. The group is presently engaged with efforts producing libraries for bioinformatics and signal image processing, working to keep portability and performance a key attribute of the libraries. T-GENAPI : is working to identify common general functions employed by multiple vendors when programming their respective FPGA systems. The group has brought together specific APIs from multiple vendors and, with early analysis, identified certain core functions with a high probability of being commonly defined or standardized across vendors. T-APPREQ: is working to characterize the driving applications and requirements for FPGAs to be employed in enterprise applications. T-BENCH: has been working to develop a template model for consistently evaluating the impact and performance of FPGA enhanced applications. Ranging from a simple metric of time to solution, to more detailed metrics on relative performance, the group has worked through the template model and reference implementation with specification for a general Smith-Waterman algorithm. The group is interested in having other groups develop FPGA implementations of the same specification which can be subsequently compared. (The specification can be obtained via the working group.) T-HLLANG: has a new lead. Since the last newsletter, Ron Sass (now of UNC-Charlotte) has volunteered to lead the organization of this working group. With Ron as the organizing lead, the working group will join the others in moving FPGA application development forward. Membership and Organization Updates [Back to top] Finally, there are many efforts underway within OpenFPGA, working to streamline operations and provide more valuable services and resources to the worldwide FPGA development community. The most significant effort is preparing for official OpenFPGA membership. There are two driving factors behind the membership preparations, both which will serve the community interest. First, OpenFPGA is a member organization, and as such, needs to periodically elect members to leadership positions to help guide the community effort forward. An organization needs members to do this. Second, the working groups have now advanced to where support for basic collaboration tools and other support are needed to drive projects forward. With a lively and involved discussion with a variety of opinions, the OpenFPGA board has voted to keep the membership fee both relatively modest, while still providing enough support to help the working groups move forward. What’s more, with membership running on a calendar year basis, a 50% discount was voted for the remainder of 2006. The discounted membership fee for 2006 is $50 (US). For convenience, memberships through 2007 are also available. The board, keeping in mind the critical role of students in the overall effort, is working to define an option for student involvement that doesn’t require payment for full membership. Membership requires an application and payment, both of which can be easily completed online. Many more details regarding membership, including how to apply, are available online at www.openfpga.org/membership.shtml. OpenFPGA conducted a survey last year, when only 60 participants were involved. This year, over 400 participants are involved with OpenFPGA. The survey is being reissued for 2006 to provide both input in future directions and to examine changes in priorities in the past year. The survey will be announced in a separate email, offering both online and email options to complete. |