Section: Scientific Foundations

Algorithm Architecture Interaction

As Cairn mainly targets domain-specific systems-on-chip including reconfigurable capabilities, algorithmic-level optimizations have a great potential on the efficiency of the overall system. Based on the skills and experiences in “signal processing and communications” of some Cairn 's members, we conduct research on algorithmic optimization techniques under two main constraints: energy consumption and computation accuracy; and for two main application domains: fourth-generation (4G) mobile telecommunications and wireless sensor networks (WSN). These application domains are very conducive to our research activities. The high complexity of the first one and the stringent power constraint of the second one, require the design of specific high-performance and energy efficient SoCs. Sections 4.1 to 4.4 detail the application domains that we focus on.

We also work on computer arithmetic operators and representations of numbers for hardware and software implementations. We provide algorithms for evaluating operations such as: addition, multiplication, multiplication by constant, power, division, roots, (inverse) trigonometric functions, (inverse) hyperbolic functions, logarithms, exponentials, and combinations. For hardware implementations, we work on the reduction of the delay, silicon area and power consumption. For software implementations, we focus on high-performance computing libraries on general purpose processors (GPPs) and graphic processor units (GPUs). We work on the use of exotic representations of numbers in specific domains such as secured implementations of cryptosystems with high-performance protection against side-channel analysis or fault attacks.