If you're an undergraduate or M.Eng. student at MIT interested in joining the lab, here are some challenge problems we'd ask you to do to see if there a research and technical fit.

Matrix Multiplier in Calyx

Calyx is a compiler infrastructure for hardware generation; think of it as "LLVM for hardware generation". It provides a both software-like control flow operations and hardware-like structural operations to describe efficient circuits.

For this challenge problem, you will implement matrix multiplication unit in Calyx.

Preliminary. Learn about Calyx and implement a basic design in it.

• (Optional) Read the Calyx paper.
• Setup Calyx and follow the tutorial.
• Implement a matrix multiplier in Calyx and test it for correctness by writing a test harness.

Challenge. If you are a UROP applying to the lab, you can consider these optional! If you are an M.Eng. student, you should do at least one challenge problem. Doing more problems gives us a better understanding of your skills and would help us match you to a project in the lab!

• Latency optimization. The test harness reports a cycle count. Optimize the design to reduce the cycle count. Some options (although you are welcome to try something else!)
  • Use Calyx's static abstraction.
  • Implement a systolic array in Calyx
• Frequency optimization. The frequency of a hardware design determines how quickly the clock can tick. This information is not provided by the test harness.
  • Install and use AMD's Vivado tool (using the free HLPack version) to get frequency numbers for your Calyx design.
  • Implement one optimization that improves the baseline frequency of the design.
• Implement a pass using the Calyx infrastructure improves some performance metric: the number of resources a design uses, its latency, or its frequency.
  • The pass tutorial provides and overview on how to implement new passes in Calyx.
• Anything else you think might be cool!

You likely to run into problems when doing this, especially when installing things. Please open an issue in the Calyx repository or ask a question the Calyx Zulip server! Good luck! Once you have completed at least one challenge problem, please reach out to Rachit!