A Synthesizable Multicore Platform for Microwave Imaging

Active microwave imaging techniques such as radar and tomography are used in a wide range of medical, industrial, scientific, and military applications. Microwave imaging devices emit radio waves and process their reflections to reconstruct an image. However, data processing remains a challenge as image reconstruction algorithms are computationally expensive and many applications come with strictly constrained mechanical or power requirements. We developed Tinuso, a multicore architecture optimized for performance when implemented on an FPGA. Tinuso’s architecture is well suited to run highly parallel image reconstruction applications at a low power budget. In this paper, we describe the design and the implementation of Tinuso’s communication structures, which include a generic 2D mesh on-chip interconnect and a network interface to the processor pipeline. We optimize the network for a latency of one cycle per network hop and attain a high clock frequency by pipelining the feedback loop to manage contention. We implement a multicore configuration with 48 cores and achieve a clock frequency as high as 300 MHz with a peak switching data rate of 9.6 Gbits/s per link on state-of-the-art FPGAs.