3.12. FFT Generator

The FFT generator is a parameterizable fft accelerator.

3.12.1. Configuration

The following configuration creates an 8-point FFT:

class FFTRocketConfig extends Config(
  new fftgenerator.WithFFTGenerator(baseAddr=0x2000, numPoints=8, width=16, decPt=8) ++ // add 8-point mmio fft at 0x2000 with 16bit fixed-point numbers.
  new freechips.rocketchip.subsystem.WithNBigCores(1) ++
  new chipyard.config.AbstractConfig)

baseAddress specifies the starting address of the FFT’s read and write lanes. The FFT write lane is always located at baseAddress. There is 1 read lane per output point; since this config specifies an 8-point FFT, there will be 8 read lanes. Read lane i (which can be loaded from to retrieve output point i) will be located at baseAddr + 64bits (assuming 64bit system) + (i * 8). baseAddress should be 64-bit aligned

width is the size of input points in binary. A width of w means that each point will have w bits for the real component and w bits for the imaginary component, yielding a total of 2w bits per point. decPt is the location of the decimal point in the fixed-precision representation of each point’s real and imaginary value. In the Config above, each point is 32 bits wide, with 16 bits used to represent the real component and 16 bits used to represent the imaginary component. Within the 16 bits for each component, the 8 LSB are used to represent the decimal component of the value and the remaining (8) MSB are used to represent the integer component. Both the real and imaginary components use a fixed-precision representation.

To build a simulation of this example Chipyard config, run the following commands:

cd sims/verilator # or "cd sims/vcs"
make CONFIG=FFTRocketConfig

3.12.2. Usage and Testing

Points are passed into the FFT via the single write lane. In C pseudocode, this might look like:

for (int i = 0; i < num_points; i++) {
    // FFT_WRITE_LANE = baseAddress
    uint32_t write_val = points[i];
    volatile uint32_t* ptr = (volatile uint32_t*) FFT_WRITE_LANE;
    *ptr = write_val;
}

Once the correct number of inputs are passed in (in the config above, 8 values would be passed in), the read lanes can be read from (again in C pseudocode):

for (int i = 0; i < num_points; i++) {
    // FFT_RD_LANE_BASE = baseAddress + 64bits (for write lane)
    volatile uint32_t* ptr_0 = (volatile uint32_t*) (FFT_RD_LANE_BASE + (i * 8));
    uint32_t read_val = *ptr_0;
}

The fft.c test file in the tests/ directory can be used to verify the fft’s functionality on an SoC built with FFTRocketConfig.

3.12.3. Acknowledgements

The code for the FFT Generator was adapted from the ADEPT Lab at UC Berkeley’s Hydra Spine project.

Authors for the original project (in no particular order):

  • James Dunn, UC Berkeley (dunn [at] eecs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu)
    • Deserialize.scala
    • Tail.scala
    • Unscramble.scala
  • Stevo Bailey (stevo.bailey [at] berkeley [dot] edu)
    • FFT.scala