ZyForce: An FPGA-based Cloud Platform for Experimental Curriculum of Computer System in University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Abstract Only)

ABSTRACT

To cultivate students" capability of computer system thinking and software/hardware programming, experimental curriculum of computer system is regarded as one of the most effective methods. Some universities have set up hardware labs equipped with several or dozens of FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) boards for these courses. However, these lab kits are always in a relatively low utilization rate and how the students" capability is improved by these assets is not easy to be evaluated. Inspired by the merits of FPGA public cloud (e.g. Amazon AWS F1 instance), an in-house-designed FPGA-based online cloud platform (named ZyForce) is proposed to deploy in UCAS. This platform is equipped with 40 custom designed boards using Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC FPGAs and the utilization rate of these education resources is boosted by means of advanced cloud computing technology. With ZyForce, students remotely carry out lab assignments (e.g. MIPS, RISC-V or domain-specific architecture processor design with cache/memory, DMA, accelerator and performance counter) as using local FPGA boards; instructors can analyze the downloaded operation log file for each student and know how these kits are being used. It"s believed that this kind of online hardware lab appliances provides a novel pay-as-you-go service model for those universities in remote regions who cannot afford to set up their own hardware laboratories, and also facilitates our students, the future scientists and engineers, with this promising cloud development approach.

Index Terms

• Hardware

  • Integrated circuits

    • Reconfigurable logic and FPGAs

• Networks

  • Network services

    • Cloud computing

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computing education programs

        • Computer science education