On Dec 15, 2007 7:05 AM, Dieter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> With > > >> sufficient hardware, you can do my sample problem at the rate of one > > >> output per clock. HOWEVER, it will require 9 hardware multipliers and 6 > > >> adders vs only 3 of each for the vector processor. To do 4 vector * 4x4 > > >> Transform matrix (which is required for RGBA pixels), it will require 16 > > >> hardware multipliers and 12 adders. > > >> > > >> Are we really going to have that kind of hardware available? > > > > > > Is that really a huge amount of hardware, given how many transistors/gates > > > a modern ASIC has? > > > > No, it isn't a huge amount of hardware compared to ASIC chips which > > exist or compared to a processor chip. However, we are using an FPGA > > and the question becomes: will it fit in the FPGA which we have chosen? > > Specifically, the FPGA has a fixed number of multiplier arrays and > > when we use all of them, that is it. > > The goal here is the OGC board. > > The plan is to design an ASIC to put on the board. (Unless we find > a suitable DSP or whatever that will do the job.) > > Granted we want to keep the size of the ASIC reasonable, for both cost > and power/heat reasons. We want the ASIC to be significantly smaller > than the monsters that ATI and Nvidia are cranking out. My question is, > would the 16 multipliers and 12 adders be reasonable, or would that > push the ASIC into the expensive and power hungry territory? > > The FPGA is a tool to design the ASIC. If the entire ASIC design > can't fit into the FPGA at once, perhaps it can be tested in pieces. > Perhaps we could use more than one OGD1 together?
More than that, if we can design an architecture that in OGD1 is lousy (10fps at 1024x768) but that scales well into an ASIC (be it reasonable frequency taking power/heat into account, be it number of cores/pipelines taking price, size and technology issues into account), we shouldn't be afraid to invest time in it. Scalability is not as simple as raising frequency or adding more cores, but it's doable. > > _______________________________________________ > Open-graphics mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics > List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com) > _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
