Getting Started with Alveo FPGA acceleration

Description

Compute servers in COSMOS, and cloud computing nodes in ORBIT Sandbox 9 are equipped with Alveo U200 accelerator cards (with Virtex Ultra Scale+ XCU200-2FSGD2104E FPGA). These cards can be used to accelerate compute-intensive applications such as d machine learning, and video processing. They are connected to the Intel Xeon host CPU over PCI Express® (PCIe) Gen3x16 bus.

This tutorial demonstrates how to run an accelerated FPGA kernel on the above platform. Vitis unified software platform 2019.2 is used for developing and deploying the application.

Prerequisites

In order to access the test bed, create a reservation and have it approved by the reservation service. Access to the resources is granted after the reservation is confirmed. Please follow the process shown on the COSMOS work flow page to get started.

Resources required

1 COSMOS compute server or 1 node in ORBIT SB9.

Execution

Prepare the node

• Load alveo_runtime.ndz on a reserved server/node. This image comes with XRT(Xilinx Run Time) and Alveo U200 XDMA deployment shell installed.

• Turn the node on

• Check the status

  -----------------------------------------------
  Node: node19-1.grid.orbit-lab.org       State: POWERON
  Node: node20-1.grid.orbit-lab.org       State: POWERON
  -----------------------------------------------
  

• ssh to the node

[[CollapsibleStart(...)]]

• Check if the card is successfully installed and the if the firmware matches with the shell installed on the host. Run lspci command as shown below. If the card is successfully installed, two physical functions should be found per each card, one for management and one for user.

  root@node1-6:~# sudo lspci -vd 10ee:
  d8:00.0 Processing accelerators: Xilinx Corporation Device d000
          Subsystem: Xilinx Corporation Device 000e
          Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 200, NUMA node 1
          Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
          Memory at f2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
          Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
          Capabilities: [48] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
          Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
          Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
          Capabilities: [1c0] #19
          Capabilities: [400] Access Control Services
          Kernel driver in use: xclmgmt
          Kernel modules: xclmgmt
  
  

The above output shows only the management function. In that case, the firmware on the FPGA needs to be updated as follows. xilinx_u200_xdma_201830_2 is the deployment shell installed on the alveo_deployment.ndz image.

root@node1-6:~# sudo /opt/xilinx/xrt/bin/xbmgmt flash --update --shell xilinx_u200_xdma_201830_2
         Status: shell needs updating
         Current shell: xilinx_u200_GOLDEN_5
         Shell to be flashed: xilinx_u200_xdma_201830_2
Are you sure you wish to proceed? [y/n]: y

Updating SC firmware on card[0000:d8:00.0]
INFO: found 4 sections
.....................................
INFO: Loading new firmware on SC

Updating shell on card[0000:d8:00.0]
INFO: ***Found 700 ELA Records
Idcode byte[0] ff
Idcode byte[1] 20
Idcode byte[2] bb
Idcode byte[3] 21
Idcode byte[4] 10
Enabled bitstream guard. Bitstream will not be loaded until flashing is finished.
Erasing flash...................................
Programming flash...................................
Cleared bitstream guard. Bitstream now active.
Successfully flashed Card[0000:d8:00.0]

1 Card(s) flashed successfully.
Cold reboot machine to load the new image on card(s).

• Power cycle the node using omf offh and on commands. Once the node is on, ssh to the node.
• Run lspci command to verify the updated firmware. The output now shows both the management and user functions.

  root@node1-6:~# sudo lspci -vd 10ee:
  d8:00.0 Processing accelerators: Xilinx Corporation Device 5000
          Subsystem: Xilinx Corporation Device 000e
          Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, NUMA node 1
          Memory at 387ff2000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
          Memory at 387ff4000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128K]
          Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
          Capabilities: [60] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=33 Masked-
          Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
          Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
          Capabilities: [1c0] #19
          Capabilities: [400] Access Control Services
          Capabilities: [410] #15
          Kernel driver in use: xclmgmt
          Kernel modules: xclmgmt
  
  d8:00.1 Processing accelerators: Xilinx Corporation Device 5001
          Subsystem: Xilinx Corporation Device 000e
          Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 220, NUMA node 1
          Memory at 387ff0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
          Memory at 387ff4020000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
          Memory at 387fe0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
          Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
          Capabilities: [60] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=33 Masked-
          Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
          Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
          Capabilities: [400] Access Control Services
          Capabilities: [410] #15
          Kernel driver in use: xocl
          Kernel modules: xocl
  

• Use the xbmgmt flash —scan command to view and validate the card's current firmware version, as well as display the installed card details

  root@node1-6:~# /opt/xilinx/xrt/bin/xbmgmt flash --scan
  Card [0000:d8:00.0]
      Card type:          u200
      Flash type:         SPI
      Flashable partition running on FPGA:
          xilinx_u200_xdma_201830_2,[ID=0x000000005d1211e8],[SC=4.2.0]
      Flashable partitions installed in system:
          xilinx_u200_xdma_201830_2,[ID=0x000000005d1211e8],[SC=4.2.0]
  

Note the shell version installed on the FPGA(Flashable partition running on FPGA) matches with that installed on the host(Flashable partitions installed in system).

• For more information on card start up, please refer ​https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/boards_and_kits/accelerator-cards/ug1301-getting-started-guide-alveo-accelerator-cards.pdf

Run the application

• Multiple examples, from various sources have been cloned to the node image.