Execution Model - 2022.1 English

Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393)

Document ID
UG1393
Release Date
2022-05-25
Version
2022.1 English

In the Vitis core development kit, an application program is split between a host application and hardware accelerated kernels with a communication channel between them. The host program, written in C/C++ and using API abstractions like XRT APIs, is compiled into an executable that runs on a host processor (such as an x86 server or an Arm processor for embedded platforms); while hardware accelerated kernels are compiled into an executable device binary (.xclbin) that runs within the programmable logic (PL) region of a Xilinx device.

The API calls, managed by XRT, are used to process transactions between the host program and the hardware accelerators. Communication between the host and the kernel, including control and data transfers, occurs across the PCIe® bus or an AXI bus for embedded platforms. Control information is written to or read from specific address-mapped register in the kernels. Data buffers are exchanged between the host and kernels through global memory. Global memory is accessible by both the host processor and hardware accelerators, while host memory is only accessible by the host application.

The target platform contains the FPGA accelerated kernels, global memory, and the direct memory access (DMA) for memory transfers. Kernels can have one or more global memory interfaces and are programmable.

The FPGA can accommodate multiple kernel instances on the accelerator, both different types of kernels, and multiple instances of the same kernel. XRT transparently orchestrates the interactions between the host program and kernels in the accelerator. XRT architecture documentation is available at https://xilinx.github.io/XRT/.