A reconfigurable HW/SW platform for computation intensive high-resolution real-time digital film applications

This paper presents a multi-board, multi-FPGA hardware/software architecture, for computation intensive, high resolution (2048times2048pixels), real-time (24 frames per second) digital film processing. It is based on Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs, large SDRAM memories for multiple frame storage and a PCI express communication network. The architecture reaches record performance running a complex noise reduction algorithm including a 2.5 dimensions DWT and a full 16times16 motion estimation at 24 fps requiring a total of 203 Gops/s net computing performance and a total of 28 Gbit/s DDR-SDRAM frame memory bandwidth. To increase design productivity and yet achieve high clock rates (125MHz), the architecture combines macro component configuration and macro level floorplanning with weak programmability using distributed microcoding. As an example, the core of the bidirectional motion estimation using 2772 CLBs reaching 155 Gop/s (1538 op/pixel) requiring 7 Gbit/s external memory bandwidth was developed in two men-months