N-port memory mapping for LUT-based FPGAs

Abstract

As current FPGAs grow in logic capacity, they are widely used to implement entire systems. In some specific applications, such as our embedded multi-core processor TriBA[1],user memory models are not limited to single-port or dual-port. Thus, we need a cost-effective way to realize N-port memory on FPGA since most commercial products do not provide N-port physical arrays. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical N-port memory architecture for LUT-based FPGAs. The principle of this architecture is to create a two-level memory hierarchy formed by different resources. We map the memory resources inside LUTs as 1-port memory banks, and interleave these banks to create N-port L1 memory. We also interleave physical dual-port arrays to build N-port L2 memory. We also provide the data transfer between L1 and L2 memories and assume that such data transfer is managed by software control just like the strategy used by SPM. Compared to L1 memory, L2 memory has the advantage in cost and also has several disadvantages, such as longer access time and higher conflict probability. If most accesses are served by its L1 memory portion, hierarchical memory architecture will achieve both goals in cost and access time. We implement this architecture on Xilinx Virtex-II chips to measure its cost and also use the memory trace collected from multi-core simulator to measure its average access time. The product of cost and average access time shows that, hierarchical memory architecture is a cost-effective way to realize N-port memory on FPGA.