Dynamic Hardware Plugins (DHP) Exploiting Reconfigurable Hardware for High-Performance Prog

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Abstract--ThispaperpresentstheDynamicHard-

warePlugins(DHP)architectureforimplementingmultiplenetworkingapplicationsinhardwareatpro-

grammablerouters.Byenablingmultipleapplica-

tionstobedynamicallyloadedintoasinglehardware

device,theDHParchitectureprovidesascalablemechanismforimplementinghigh-performancepro-

grammablerouters.TheDHParchitectureispre-

sentedwithinthecontextofaprogrammablerouterarchitecturewhichprocessesflowsinbothsoftware

andhardware.Possibleimplementationsare

describedaswellastheprototypetestbedatWashing-ton University in Saint Louis1.

Keywords--Programmablerouter,reconfigurable

hardware, active networking, port processor.

I.INTRODUCTION

Asresearchersvigorouslydevelopadvancedcontrol

andprocessingschemesforprogrammablenetworks[1],thereexistsaneedforascalablerouterarchitecturecapa-

bleofrobustflow-specificprocessingatopticalline

speedswithoutprohibitivelyhighper-portcosts.Asthe

quantityanddiversityofstreamingdataandcomputa-tionallyintensiveapplicationscontinuestoincrease,

routerarchitecturesmustrespondwithgreaterflexibility,

processingcapacity,andperformance.Withnext-genera-tionrouterscontaininghundredsofports,processing

mechanisms must scale at a reasonable per-port cost.

Existingrouterarchitecturesthatprovidesufficientflexibilityandper-flowprocessingemploysoftwarepro-

cessingenvironmentscontainingmultipleReduced

InstructionSetComputer(RISC)cores.Existinghigh-

performancerouterarchitecturescapableofdataprocess-ingatopticallinespeedsemployApplicationSpecific

IntegratedCircuits(ASICs)toperformparallelcomputa-tionsinhardware.However,thesearchitecturesoften

providelimitedflexibilityfordeploymentofnewapplica-

tionsorprotocols,andnecessitatelongerdesigncycles

andhighercoststhansoftware-basedsolutions.Clearly,theidealrouterarchitecturemustexhibittheflexibility

availableinsoftwareandtheperformanceofferedby

hardware.Thediversityofnetworkingapplicationsanddataflows

suggeststhatdynamicallyreprogrammableprocessing

environmentisneededtocoverthepotentialdesignspace.Whilesomeapplicationsperforminglimitedpro-

cessingatlowdataratesreadilylendthemselvestosoft-

wareimplementation,avastarrayofapplicationsmap

welltohardwareimplementationduetohighdatarates,dataregularities,andparalleloperations.Thisimplies

thataviablesolutiontotheprogrammablerouterprob-

lemshouldemploybothsoftwareandreconfigurablehardwaretoprocessdataflows.Withthedevelopmentof

severalmulti-RISCcoreprocessorarchitecturesand

implementations,theproblemofprovidingascalablesoftwareprocessingenvironmentiswellinvestigated.

Theproblemofaddingaflexibleandscalablehardware

processing environment remains.

Traditionallyusedforlow-volumeprototypingandtestingpurposes,thereconfigurablehardwareemployed

inFieldProgrammableGateArrays(FPGAs)providesa

flexiblehardwareplatform.Recently,reconfigurablehardwaretechnologyhasmadeseveralcompellingper-

formanceadvances,identifyingitasapossiblesolution

fortheprogrammablerouternodeproblem.Newrecon-figurablehardwaredevicestoutapproximately1million

applicationlogicgates,internalclockratesupto200

MHz,over100KBofon-chipmemory,andpartial-recon-

figurationcapability[2].Moreimpressivethanthecur-renttechnicalstatisticsistherateofprogressdue

to1.ThisresearchsupportedbyNSF:ANI-0096052andXilinx, Inc.Dynamic Hardware Plugins (DHP):

Exploiting Reconfigurable Hardware for High-Performance

Programmable Routers

David E. Taylor, Jonathan S. Turner, John W. Lockwood

det3@arl.wustl.edu, jst@cs.wustl.edu, lockwood@arl.wustl.edu

Applied Research Laboratory

Washington University in Saint Louis

Campus Box 1045

One Brookings Drive

Saint Louis, MO 63130

USA

(314) 935-4845

0-7803-7064-3/01/$10.00 (C) 2001 IEEEIEEE OPENARCH 2001

architecturaloptimizationsandsiliconfabrication

improvements:usablelogicgatecountincreasedby10timesintwoyears;systemclockfrequencydoubledin

oneyear;I/Obandwidthquadrupledintwoyears;block

anddistributedon-chipmemorycapacityquadrupledin

oneyear[3].Reconfigurablehardwaredevicesareclearlypositioningthemselvesasviableoptionsforflexible,

high-performance systems.

TheDynamicHardwarePlugins(DHP)architectureemploysreconfigurablehardwaretoprovideaflexible

hardwareprocessingenvironmentforprogrammable,

multi-portrouters.DHPallowsmultiplehardwareappli-cations,orplugins,tobedynamicallyloadedintoasingle

deviceandruninparallel,providingasubstantialamount

ofper-flowprocessing.Withdedicatedon-chiplogicandmemoryresourcesprovisionedforeachpluginaswellas

arbitratedaccesstotwotypesofoff-chipmemory

resources,DHPsupportsabroadspectrumofapplica-

tions.ResultsofseveralcasestudiesofAdvancedEncryptionStandard(AES)implementationsinsoftware,

FPGAs,andASICsareusedtoshowthepotentialperfor-

manceandflexibilitygainsoftheDHParchitecturefornetworking applications in programmable routers.