Spatial processing of the SPICE circuit simulator using reconfigurable architectures (i.e. FPGAs) can deliver an order of magnitude speedup over conventional processors (i.e. Intel multi-core CPUs) for a range of benchmark circuits. SPICE has historically been hard to parallelize due to the irregular nature of the computation. In this talk, I show how to expose the different, irregular parallel patterns inherent in SPICE using a high-level, domain-specific framework capable of composing multiple patterns simultaneously on the same FPGA fabric. I will also briefly overview some recent, preliminary enhancements that can further improve the SPICE FPGA design.
published on: 12th July 2011