TaPaSCo version 2024.1

We are happy to announce that we finally have a new TaPaSCo release! The main changes are:

• Support for Vivado 2022.2, 2023.1 and 2023.2
• Improved support for Versal devices: QDMA streaming, AI engines and 100G MRMAC
• New board support for Alveo U50 and VCK5000
• Better support for multiple FPGAs and programming adapters on the same host
• Full system simulation (thanks @hmentzer)
• New boot images for Ultra96 and ZCU102 available for download (thanks @timksf)
• New tapasco-examples repository
• BSVTools can now generate TaPaSCo PE skeletons in Bluespec

TaPaSCo version 2022.1

• Support for Vivado 2021.1, 2021.2 and 2022.1
• Initial support for Versal (this is considered beta status)
• tapasco-debug has been rewritten in Rust
• New feature: shared virtual memory
• Bittware XUP-VVH: Updated DDR memory and separate ES-part
• Various bug fixes

TaPaSCo version 2021.1

• Support for Vivado 2020.2 and Vitis HLS
• Partial support for Vivado 2021.1
• SMMU support for ZynqMP platforms (requires custom Linux image)
• DMI debug for RISC-V PEs
• New network features: 100G/Aurora for XUPVVH, 10G/100G/Aurora for U280
• New JSPS publication
• Bugfixes

TaPaSCo version 2020.10

The main change in TaPaSCo 2020.10 is the new runtime. It is completely re-engineered in Rust and comes with many improvements like better error handling and multithreading support. This change requires the rust compiler as a prerequisite (please get a recent version via https://rustup.rs/).

Other changes included in the release are:

• Standardized feature to connect PEs to network ports for supported platforms (VC709, ZC706, XUP-VVH, NetFPGA-SUME)
• The addition of the Alveo U280 data center card as a supported card
• Support for Vivado 2020.1 and CentOS 8

Stats

This release closes 12 issues closed in over 260 commits.

TaPaSCo version 2020.04

We are happy to announce TaPaSCo 2020.04 coming right to you with a number of new platforms bringing TaPaSCo to the cloud and adding HBM support.

AWS Support

TaPaSCo now supports AWS F1 instances. Start generating bitstreams using our guide. No changes to your runtime necessary!

HBM Support

TaPaSCo now supports HBM enabled FPGAs, namely the XUPVVH from Bittware. Different HBM channels can be attached to the PEs as desired.

MPSoC and Zynq

The driver and bitstream generation for MPSoC and Zynq has been modernized and is now easier to use than ever. This change comes with an entirely new root FS generator. In combination with these changes, TaPaSCo now supports the low cost entry to MPSoC: The Ultra96 v2.

Prebuild images are available for download here.

Bugfixes

In total this release closes 18 Issues in 317 commits.

TaPaSCo version 2019.10

We are happy to announce TaPaSCo 2019.10 coming right to you with a number of structural changes.

Directory Structure

The directory structure has been changed completely. The individual parts of TaPaSCo are now separated into the Toolflow and Runtime directories to avoid confusion.

TaPaSCo Setup

The novel tapasco-init script enables out-of-tree builds to simplify using multiple TaPaSCo builds in parallel.

Toolflow Changes

The toolflow is now built by Gradle instead of SBT. Along with these changes, we now provide OS packages for leading Linux distributions. Compilation of TaPaSCo is no longer necessary for a majority of users.

Quality of Life

A number of quality of life changes targets the usability of TaPaSCo. QoL-Improvements include:

• Updated and improved Readme.
• TaPaSCo will now also work with symbolic links. This also means, that you do not have to move your HLS-Kernels. Instead just symlink them into the corresponding directory.
• The parsing of .json-files was reworked. Now, all relevant errors are reported much more clearly. Also, folders and files mentioned by the .json-files are checked for existance, to ensure that all required files are actually available.
• A lot of unnecessary error-messages have been removed.
• The starting Frequency of DSEs can now be overwritten to save time.

TaPaSCo Status Core

The status core is now based on Protobuf instead of using a custom format. The new format is much more flexible and provides much more indepth information about the bitstream.

Bugfixes

In total this release closes 34 Issues in over 270 commits.

TaPaSCo version 2019.6

The new TaPaSCo release 2019.6 bundles a whole lot of improvements:

• Features:

  • Detailed status information: TaPaSCo will now print detailed status information in every step of the process, e.g. bitstream composition, giving you insights on how long each step took.
  • Faster bitstream building: Via the --effortLevel-switch, you can now select between different options for the effort level of synthesis and PnR. This allows you to trade compilation time for QoR or vice versa. In addition to this new switch, we have also removed the power report step from the default compilation process to further reduce bitstream compilation times.
  • Better import: We have completely overhauled the import-command. The evaluation of IP-cores now fully understands the IP-XACT format, making TaPaSCo's core-import compatibel with vendor IP packaging.
  • Less disk pollution: We have added the switch --deleteProjects to the TaPaSCo CLI. This switch lets you control whether TaPaSCo will keep all intermediate files (such as the Vivado project) or delete them. This lets you save tons of disk space in case you are only interested in the final result of DSE- or compose-run.
  • No unnecessary DSE runs: In case PEs occupy more than one slave slots, TaPaSCo DSE will not anymore waste time on building compositions that exceed the maximum number of slave slots (128).

• Stability improvements:
  With this release, we have improved the stability of TaPaSCo in a number of places. This includes bitstream generation for Xilinx ZCU102, the reliability of PCIE interrupts, which are now actively acknowledged, and a generalized LED feature for all platforms.

• Supported tools:
  TaPaSCo can now officially run on Ubuntu 19.04 and Fedora 31 and supports Xilinx Vivado 2019.1.

• Community:
  TaPaSCo now has an official contributor's guide for people interested in contributing to the development of TaPaSCo.

As always, we provide archives containing packages for the TaPaSCo runtime as well as the kernel module for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 30 for download here. Check out the CI pipeline artifacts for binaries for even more OS versions (Ubuntu & Fedora).

TaPaSCo version 2018.2

The new TaPaSCo release 2018.2 contains a number of new features and improvements:

• Features:

  • Support for SFP+ transceivers: Processing elements can now be connected to SFP+ transceivers on the FPGA board via AXI4 stream connections. The new features supports connection of multiple PEs to the same transceiver using different arbitration schemes as well as the connection of a single PE to multiple transceivers.

  • New features in the CLI application: The command-line interface of TaPaSCo has been improved with a number of small new features, such as the --skipEvaluation-flag for HLS runs.

• Platforms: The new release adds support for a number of new platforms:

  • Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ VCU108 (vcu108)
  • Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ VCU108 (vcu108)
  • Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ VCU1525 (vcu1525)
  • Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC ZCU102 (zcu102)
  • Xilinx Alveo U250 (au250)

• Stability improvements: The new release fixes a number of bugs (see the issue tracker) and significantly improves the overall stability of TaPaSCo. We have also extended our CI pipeline to make sure that in the future we catch bugs as early as possible.

We provide archives containing packages for the TaPaSCo runtime as well as the kernel module for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 30 for download here. Check out the CI pipeline artifacts for binaries for even more OS versions (Ubuntu & Fedora).