An energy-efficient high-performance processor with reconfigurable data-paths using RSFQ circuits

We show recent progress in our research on an energy-efficient high-performance processor with reconfigurable data-paths (RDPs) using rapid single-flux-quantum (RSFQ) circuits. We mainly describe the architectural details of an RDP implemented using RSFQ circuits. An RDP consists of a lot of floating-point units (FPUs) and operand routing networks (ORNs) which connect the FPUs. We reconfigure the RDP to fit a computation, i.e., a group of floating-point operations, appearing in a ‘for’ loop of programs for numerical computations by setting the route in ORNs before the execution of the loop. In the RDP, a lot of FPUs work in parallel with pipelined fashion, and hence, very high-performance computation is achieved.

► An idea of a high-performance computer using RSFQ circuits is shown.
► An outline of processor with reconfigurable data-paths (RDPs) is shown.
► Architectural details of an SFQ-RDP are described.