FPGA implementation of cellular automata compared to software implementation

Abstract

In order to optimize applications in the Cellular Automata model we have searched for a performant platform to run billions of simulations. The question was how much speed-up could be gained by using the FPGA technology compared to optimized software. As an example we implemented two cellular automata rules in software on a PC and also in FPGA logic. On our low end experimental platform we reached a speed-up of 19 for a medium complex rule and 14 for a complex rule. If we would use the latest high end FPGA technology, speed-ups up to many thousand are realistic. A cluster of thousands of workstations would be necessary to reach the same performance which is much more costly than a FPGA solution.