Reliability and performance-per-Watt customization on FPGA for space applications

Speaker:       George Lentaris

Time:            11:15, Apr. 3rd.

Location:      SIST 3-301

Host:             Prof. Yanjun Ha

Abstract:

Space applications nowadays require onboard processors combining high performance with strict reliability and energy-efficiency constraints. The AI/DSP workloads for image processing, communications, and autonomous navigation must operate under limited power budgets and in harsh radiation environments, while also being affected by PVT variations. To tackle this challenge, the FPGAs offer both hardware acceleration and low-level configurability, and thus, enable customization of performance-per-Watt and system reliability. In this talk, we present radiation testing and mitigation techniques applied to our FPGAs in the lab, we show how to analyze the PVT variability of commercial devices, and we propose frameworks to fine-tune the operating margins via DVFS and PVT-aware placement. Furthermore, we explore mapping strategies and DVFS on AMD/Xilinx Versal to efficiently execute GEMM kernels and support emerging AI applications.  

Bio:

George Lentaris is an assistant professor at the dpt. of Informatics & Computer Engineering at the University of West Attica (UNIWA) and senior researcher at the National Technical University (NTUA), in Athens, Greece. He holds a PhD in Computing from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece, as well as two MSc degrees in Algorithms and Electronic Automation, with a BSc in Physics. His research interests are in digital circuit design for signal processing. More specifically, his work includes extensive FPGA design, high-performance embedded systems, heterogeneous SoC, and parallel architectures (for applications in image/video processing and compression, computer vision, AI/ML acceleration, parallel memories organization, OFDM synchronization and baseband processing in telecommunications, 5G/6G edge computing, on-board data handling for satellite payloads, as well as process variability and reliability of embedded devices, including radiation testing of FPGA and TPU for space). He has co-authored more than 80 scientific papers and has participated in more than 20 research projects funded by the European Space Agency, European Commission, and Greece, both as an engineer and technical coordinator.