Developer Reference

Migrating OpenCL™ FPGA Designs to SYCL*

ID 767849
Date 7/13/2023
Public

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Channels/Pipes APIs

Channels/pipes allow passing data between kernels and synchronizing kernels with high efficiency and low latency. They allow kernels to communicate directly with each other using on-chip FIFO buffers implemented using FPGA memory resources. The compiler supports concurrent kernel execution with out-of-order queues that allows launching kernels concurrently with a single command queue. Using channels/pipes for data movement between concurrently executing kernels allows for data transfer without waiting for kernel completion, which can significantly increase the throughput of your design. Refer to Pipes and Pipes Extension topics in the FPGA Optimization Guide for Intel oneAPI Toolkits for additional information.

The following table depicts how to implement channels/pipes in OpenCL and SYCL:

Channels/Pipes
OpenCL SYCL
channel int my_pipe __attribute__((depth(8))); 
write_channel_intel(my_pipe, &write_data); // blocking 
read_data = read_channel_intel(my_pipe, &success_code); // non-blocking
using my_pipe = ext::intel::pipe<class some_pipe, int, 8>; 
my_pipe::write(write_data); // blocking 
read_data = my_pipe::read(&success_code); // non-blocking 

I/O Pipes

I/O Pipe Construction
OpenCL SYCL
pipe int read_io_pipe __attribute__((depth(8), io(“io_pipe_in”)));

pipe int write_io_pipe __attribute__((depth(8), io(“io_pipe_out”)));
struct read_io_pipe_id {
  // id=index to “io_pipe_in” in board_spec.xml
  static constexpr unsigned id = 0;
};

struct write_io_pipe_id {
  // id=index to “io_pipe_out” in board_spec.xml
  static constexpr unsigned id = 1;
};

using read_io_pipe = intel::kernel_readable_io_pipe<read_io_pipe_id, int, 8>;

using write_io_pipe = intel::kernel_writeable_io_pipe<write_io_pipe, int, 8>;