Apparently LSCITS has money set aside to fund a few summer internships mentored by the postgraduate researchers. As a man of many ideas but little time, seems like a good opportunity to get some things implemented.
I have one concrete proposal, outlined below. Feel free to suggest your own ideas too, as long as they’re within my field of interest.
Interns will be paid at a rate of £250 per week. You will likely be invited to present your results at the next LSCITS Symposium, to be held in London during the first week of November.
An F-lite to MicroBlaze compiler
When discussing the Reduceron’s performance, we tend to compare it to the execution of the equivalent program compiled in GHC on an x86 architecture. This isn’t entirely fair given that x86 exists in fixed silicon and clocks several times higher than the Reduceron’s FPGA implementation.
A better comparison may be to something like the MicroBlaze Soft Processor, a traditional processor architecture implemented on a Xilinx FPGA. In order to make this comparison, a compiler from F-lite to MicroBlaze instructions is required.
There are a number of possible approaches;
- Using the LLVM intermediate language and tool chain. It can target MicroBlaze baremetal and has been used very effectively in the latest versions of GHC.
- Find ways to execute GHC compiled code, baremetal, on MicroBlaze.
- Update and optimise the F-lite to C compiler.
- Using similar functional language to C compiler.
Time estimate: 7 – 8 weeks.
Recommend familiarity or even just a passing interest in functional programming, functional language implementations and/or low-level programming. Experience with MicroBlaze architecture is a bonus.
Application
If you are interested and are planning to spend the summer in York, please e-mail me at firstname@cs.york.ac.uk by the Tuesday Week 6, 31st May.
I would like to know;
- Your thoughts on the project and how you would approach it.
- What related experience you have either academically (CGO, FUN, EDI, EMS, e.t.c.) or in other work.
- What dates you plan to be available to work.
Depending on a multitude of variables, I may arrange for you to come in and have a further chat.
Eligibility
Applicants must;
- be a “middle years” student. i.e. 2nd to 3rd year or 3rd to 4th year.
- satisfy the EPSRC’s residency rules.
More information on eligibility can be found at;
Other LSCITS interships
I’m not the only one offering an LSCITS internship.
