Hwacha

The Hwacha project is developing a new vector architecture for future computer systems that are constrained in their power and energy consumption.

Inspired by traditional vector machines from the 70s and 80s, and lessons learned from our previous vector-thread architectures Scale and Maven, we are bringing back elegant, performant, and energy-efficient aspects of vector processing to modern data-parallel architectures. We propose a new vector-fetch architectural paradigm, which focuses on the following aspects for higher performance, better energy efficiency, and lower complexity.

Hide Memory Latency with Decoupling for Better Efficiency.

Exploit Operand Uniformity with Scalarization.

Handle Control Flow Efficiently with Predication.

Support Mixed-Precision Seamlessly.

Optimize for Temporal Operand Re-Usage.

OS-Friendly from the Ground Up.

We are currently working towards an open-source release of the hardware and software toolchain.