Macle (ML accelerator)

A language to program hardware-accelerated functions in ML style, and call them from OCaml programs running on FPGA via the O2B (https://github.com/jserot/O2B).

O2B is an implementation of the OCaml virtual machine targeting a softcore processor designed on a FPGA. O2B supports currently the Intel Nios II softcore processor on the Terrasic DE10-Lite Board (Intel Max 10 FPGA) with 50K logic elements, 1.6 MB of onchip memory, 64 MB of external memory (SDRAM) and a frequency of 50 Mhz.

Macle Compiler produces complete O2B platforms (including VHDL, C, OCaml code and scripts) to configure an Intel FPGA (with Quartus 15.1 and latter).

install

(see INSTALL.md)

use Macle

$ make
$ ./maclec examples/eval_exp.ml
  info: circuit  "eval_exp"  generated in folder gen/.

$ ./maclec examples/eval_exp.ml -simul

   # translates the Macle/OCaml source program 
     into an OCaml one.

$ ./maclec examples/eval_exp.ml -ocaml-backend

   # translates in OCaml the intermediate representation of the Macle/OCaml source program.

$ make run SRC=examples/eval_exp.ml

   # translates in OCaml the intermediate representation of the Macle/OCaml source program
     and run it in the OCaml toplevel.

measure execution time

$ ./maclec -time exemple/gcd.ml

increase the frequency of the Nios II softcore processor by a multiplicative factor 2 or 3

$ ./maclec -nios2-freq-multiplier 3  exemple/gcd.ml

Use external memory (SDRAM) by default, or onchip memory with the -onchip option

$ ./maclec -onchip examples/matrix_product.ml

lsylvestre / macle