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An option for implementing a co-processor for special-purpose computer systems on modern hardware components is offered in the article. The aim of the paper is to create an associative co-processor, based on the FPGA base for high-performance multiprocessor systems, the ones performing associative functions and data storage functions. Retrieval and sort operations are widely used both in users' and system programs. However, these operations are the most resource-intensive and time-consuming during the traditional implementation, when the necessary information is read in the following order: from the main memory of the computer system to the processor performing the corresponding operation with them. An associative co-processor, connected to a PCI Express bus of a specialized system that implements sort, retrieval, and “more-less” comparison operations immediately on 32 words, that are preloaded into associative memory, are considered in the article. The usage of the VHDL - hardware description language - gives the opportunity to obtain a flexible project, which can be easily corrected while checking the device operation. The operation study of the proposed device was carried out in the program Web pack ISE from Xilinx - one of the leading developers of FPGA. The efficiency of the proposed associative co-processor application is provided by performing time-consuming data retrieval, sort and comparison operations directly by the coprocessor. It offloads the processor and improves the performance of the entire computer system. The main results obtained can be applied in various retrieval systems for various purposes: database servers, in the systems, used at railway stations, airports and for the efficient and rapid implementation of retrieval functions in operating systems. |
