Re: [oc] Beyond Transmeta...

[Jamil Khatib <jamilkhatib75@yahoo.com>]

I see that you are much intrested in Run time
reconfiguration
you may check these pages for more information
www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/6639/fpga/rtr.html

www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/6639/fpga/

--- Suboner@aol.com wrote:
> > What I ment was - how many instructions and cycles
> do you need to calculate
> > all 32 bits of e.
> 
> For e alone, it would take 124 instructions... the
> amount of cycles it takes 
> depends on the number of 1bit processors. 1
> processor is 124 cycles, 4 
> processors is 32 cycles. In this case for 1 add you
> don't need anything 
> higher then 4 processors. Of course this depends on
> the how the network is 
> setup to do the add.
> 
> > Yes... I just remembered - this could be a problem
> since number of
> > connections will
> > be probably limited...
> 
> Yeah, I think 2 output connections may be the limit,
> but having 2 as a limit 
> means you can link another one to it and then have
> that one with 2, making it 
> 3., and you can keep doing this until you get the
> amount of connections as 
> needed, but this eats clocks though.
> 
> > I think that routing is major problem for your
> > design.
> 
> I agree, I'm still not sure how it can be done and
> still have self 
> modification. I'm trying to think of another way of
> doing self modification, 
> I believe neural networks use something called back
> propagation, I'm going to 
> have to study some of that. A self modifying network
> would seem to work best 
> with at least a backwards network to alter it. hmm.
> 
> > However I would recomend some mixture of or2k
> network and somesort message
> > passing for longer distances (like in plastic cell
> arrays).
> 
> Message passing? Hmmm, would this increase the
> amount of work the 1bit 
> processor does, or do you think a seperate component
> does the routing and 
> message passing?
> 
> > I don't see a problem here if routing would be
> enough general. But even if
> > not
> > nets can be optimized pretty good, shown in or2k
> example. Speed loss
> > in 3x3 or2k matrix because of connections inside
> basic block is just around
> > 5%.
> 
> hmmm, I wish I could pretend to know what you mean
> but I am at a loss.
> 
> > You can surely use function like use normal
> instructions. But you cannot
> > gain
> > parallelity this way.
> 
> Thats right, but you reduce network redundancy and
> decrease memory usage. 
> This is so that on a system with limited memory it
> creates more internal 
> processing networks, if you are really limited by
> memory you would have only 
> one processing network (working just like a CPU)
> that does everything, 
> general purpose.
> 
> On the other hand if you have a lot of memory and
> processors, you can 
> increase the network size and use more processing
> units, making it more 
> parallel, all the way up until the application is
> nothing but a big 
> processing network itself.
> 
> > There is another thing I am not sure I understand
> - how would you know when
> > certain network finishes its work?
> > You cannot know that from result itself unless it
> changes, but you don't
> > know if
> > it ever will. So when may you use it to send it to
> next network?
> 
> Well, it depends on how the network is configured.
> 
> If it is configured to work like a CPU, then it will
> try to emulate what a 
> processor does, either through a timing network that
> consumes clocks and is 
> setup to alter a bit when the estimated amount of
> time to do it goes by, each 
> type of CPU instruction could have its own kind of
> timing network. This would 
> eat up clock cycles though, and bits and require
> routing as well. I think 
> networks have the ability to replicate any kind of
> hardware logic, if you can 
> create a processor that does it in real life, then a
> network could be setup 
> to do the same... At least I think so...
> 
> When its configured to be a persistent network
> (where things only update if 
> necesary), then timing is less of an issue, although
> a part of the network 
> will probably be setup to act like a timer, or some
> input bits will take in 
> an external timer, but for this kind of network its
> less important to know 
> when they finish its work because they only update
> if their work needs to be 
> changed.
> 
> Leyland Needham


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