The ARISE Reconfigurable Instruction Set Extensions Framework

In this paper, we introduce the ARISE framework for the systematic extension of typical processors with the necessary infrastructure to support arbitrary number and type of reconfigurable hardware units. ARISE extends the micro-architecture of the processor with an interface to allow the coupling of the hardware units. Furthermore, the instruction set of the processor is extended with instructions which expose to the programmer/compiler the full control of the interface. This control includes the configuration of operations on the hardware units, execution of these operations, and communication of data between the processor and the units. The new instructions are incorporated without the need to redesign the processor instruction set architecture. To evaluate our proposal a model of an ARISE extended MIPS processor has been designed. Using a turbodecoder algorithm as benchmarking application a simulation of the ARISE model has been performed. Performance results show impressive application speedups up to times7.5.