Reconfigurable Computing: Accelerating Computation with Field-Programmable Gate Arrays [Hardcover]

Maya B. Gokhale (Author), Paul S. Graham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387261052 | ISBN-13: 978-0387261058 | Publication Date: December 14, 2005 | Edition: 1

A one-of-a-kind survey of the field of Reconfigurable Computing Gives a comprehensive introduction to a discipline that offers a 10X-100X acceleration of algorithms over microprocessors Discusses the impact of reconfigurable hardware on a wide range of applications: signal and image processing, network security, bioinformatics, and supercomputing Includes the history of the field as well as recent advances Includes an extensive bibliography of primary sources

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (December 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387261052
• ISBN-13: 978-0387261058
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,017,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First book in a new field, January 19, 2006

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wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reconfigurable Computing: Accelerating Computation with Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (Hardcover)

FPGA-based reconfigurable computing may be the first fundamental innovation in computing since von Neumann's stored programs. Gokhale, one of the founders of the field, has written the first book I know of that summarizes current state of the art.

The book is brief and dense. It starts with introductory material about what FPGAs are and why they're good for some problems. The later chapters might not have full impact if you aren't already familair with FPGAs, though. Next, there's a short discussion of compilers. To tell the truth, state of the art right now is pretty grim, about where software tools were in the 1960s. Things like VHDL have tamed logic design, but computation is a very different beast. We need something different, something that isn't there yet - no matter what the inflated claims of the tool-builders.

The remainder of the book discusses application areas. The first two chapters in this section cover the classic FPGA computing applications - signal processing and image processing, both emerging from their niches in the defense market. The last three chapters cover network security, often an FPGA-based super-Snort, bioinformatics, and applications in heat transfer and road traffic analysis. Even though FPGA computing has largely been a research field rather than a production technology, it's still too big to cover in one book. Gokhale missed some interesting bioinformatics applications, such as microarray and regulatory network analysis, and other applications including electromagnetics, molecular dynamics, and astrophysical models. Still, shes has picked good representatives of the FPGA computing field.

Now that Silicon Graphics's RASC and Cray's XD1 add-on are on the market, we'll see a lot about FGPA-based computing. In a few years, when there are more tools and tool users in the field, this may look dated. For now, if you want to know about FPGA-based computing, you'll read the proceedings of the research conferences or you'll read this.

//wiredweird