Domain-Specific Computing Using FPGA Accelerator

Domain-specific computing is one approach to greatly improving server performance by specially designing a server architecture for a particular application domain. A good way to implement such an approach is to use a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a commodity device in which processing units and memory blocks can be configured depending on the application requirements. We have developed a domain-specific server for media processing that is specialized for high-speed image retrieval by using an FPGA accelerator. We also developed a design support environment that facilitates FPGA architecture design by enabling the data dependency between modules and a performance bottleneck to be visualized. This technology supports efficient design of high-performance domain-specific FPGA accelerators. In this paper, we describe a partial image retrieval accelerator that serves as a key component of a domain-specific server for media processing and its application to a high-speed image-based document search system. We also describe our design support environment that enables design of high-performance FPGA accelerators.