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Amazon's New F1 Instance Type and FPGAs

 2017-05-13 /  414 words /  2 minutes

In the beginning, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances could be thought of as virtual machines. When the CG1 instance type with GPU acceleration launched the line between virtual and physical machines blurred. That line continues to blur with the launch of EC2 F1 instance types with FPGAs. This post explains what an FPGA is, and when they should be used.

What are FPGAs? Integrated circuits (ICs), also known as microchips, are built from millions of logic gates. Combinations of logic gates allow microchips to perform arithmetic, store simple values, compare values and run programs.

A Central Processing Unit (CPU) uses logic gates to make a general purpose microchip designed to run programs. CPUs are not optimized for any specific task, but they are very flexible. They are relatively easy to program and are used in Smartphones and computers running programs written in assembler language, C or C++ or even Java or C#. The fastest CPUs can be expensive but are readily available.

An Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) uses logic gates optimized for a specific purpose, but they are not at all flexible. They are often used in embedded devices, or to offload work from a CPU. For example, ASICs are often used in network cards. Designing and manufacturing ASICs requires very specialist knowledge and has a long lead time.

A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) also contains logic gates. In fact, it contains an array of them. The gates aren’t configured for general purpose or application specific use. The logic gates in an FPGA can be programmed to meet specific requirements and reprogrammed as often as necessary. The term “field programmable” comes from the ability to reprogram the FPGA after the device using it has been manufactured or sold.

The FPGA provides a compromise between general purpose CPUs and custom ASICs. If an ASIC design fails, it’s back to the drawing board. An FPGA can simply be reprogrammed. They are readily available and inexpensive. An FPGA can be optimized for a specific purpose.

AWS F1 Instances AWS F1 Instances contain between 1 and 8 FPGAs and include all the software to design and test. FPGA designs can be saved and offered on the AWS Marketplace as AFI (Amazon FPGA Image).

An AMI containing FPGA development tools is available from the AWS Marketplace (see here) and a t1.micro instance costs just over 1¢/hour. It will be interesting to see how this type of computing evolves now AWS has made it more widely available.


Tags:  AWS  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)  Instance Types  Instance  F1  FPGA  ASIC  CPU  AFI
Categories:  AWS  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

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