TRACER, the Next Generation Ultra-wideband Spectrum Processor

This paper introduces TRACER, the Tasklet Reconfigurable Agile Spectrum Processor, which promotes RF waveform timescale switching (<100ns) as a first-class design principle along with processing throughput, in order to address dynamic processing of very wideband (0-40GHz) spectrum sensing applications. The architecture is a novel hybrid multi-core, Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Array (CGRA), which enables a balance of fast reconfiguration and flexibility with high performance processing of common RF application kernels. TRACER provides 3 ultra-fast, reactive Lightning switching mechanisms that can switch tasklets in 5-42 ns, and slower, deliberative Thunder switches that operate at up to 12,500ns. A 5x4 array instantiation can achieve 7.86 TFLOP/s on half precision floating point in 42.3 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> TSMC12, utilizing 6W. TRACER’s switching capabilities provide high value where the RF signal environment is not well known a priori, showing up to a 293x throughput gain in spectrum sensing applications over a static implementation.