Acceleration of Othello Computer Game Using an FPGA Tablet

In this research, we accelerate the AI (Artificial Intelligence) portion of the Othello computer game using an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). In computer-based board games such as Go and Othello, the calculation time for the AI part increases according to the number of states of a game and the level of look-ahead. We propose the use of an FPGA tablet running Android OS to accelerate these games. Generally, the CPUs in mobile devices are relatively slow, and a dedicated circuit with an FPGA can easily overtake. Using the FPGA allows us to reconfigure the circuit for different applications while the operating system is running. We achieve 2.5 times acceleration compared with a CPU by developing a pattern matching circuit.