We have managed to evaluate first implementations of the Conjugate Gradient algorithm – an iterative solver for sets of linear equations used in Monte Carlo simulations on the Zynq MPSoC device.
Monte Carlo based algorithms are commonly used in theoretical physics. Such simulations are run on supercomputers, members of our team are using those located in Juelich Forschungszentrum Germany and ICM in Poland, both ranked in top 500 list (positions 22 and 223 respectively).
Those computing facilities are mainly empolying Intel Xeon CPUs, how about accelerating those computations with FPGAs? Or even replace with new platforms featuring FPGAs and MPSoCs? Enourmous amount of resources in currently available series, support from integrated ARM processors and soon available 3D ICs with integrated High Bandwidth Memory are even more convincing.
Our first results are promissing and show great potential of this technology. First shot? About 150x acceleration factor over single ARM core.
Soon we will present more detailed study.
