Hastlayer-SDK

# Release notes



Note that the Hardware Framework projects have their own release cycle and release notes.


## vNext

- Added support for the high-end [Xilinx Alveo U50, U200, U250 or U280 Data Center Accelerator Cards](https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/alveo.html). These are suitable hardware for any kind of demanding production-level workload. Apart from using such devices on-premise they're also available in the cloud.
- Added support for the high-end [AWS EC2 F1 FPGA cloud instances](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/f1/).
- Added support for [Azure NP-series VMs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/np-series) that use Xilinx Alveo U250s.
- Generating the hardware for the new high-end FPGAs is fully automatic, including driving the Xilinx toolchain.
- Migrated the code generating Transformer to the latest version of [ILSpy](https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy), see [the issue](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/20). Hastlayer uses the .NET decompilation tool ILSpy in the background to process .NET assemblies. Previously Hastlayer depended on an old version of ILSpy, 2.3.1, which came out in 2015. Now ILSpy is at version 7 so you can imagine all the changes such a jump brings! This Hastlayer release is updated to the most recent ILSpy binaries, bringing better support for .NET language features. Shoutout to the ILSpy developers for their awesome work!
- Migrated to .NET Core ([see issue](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/34)). Now not only can Hastlayer process .NET Standard assemblies as before but now the whole projects is built on .NET Core.
- Improved how hardware is generated for Xilinx devices a lot. This means that the resulting hardware implementations fit better on devices, there is a smaller chance for incorrect hardware results and the hardware implementation phase (with the Xilinx tools) is faster too.
- Added support for extension methods.
- Added support for inlining methods with multiple return statements.
- Added a documentation page with benchmarks.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.

Note that running Hastlayer now requires Visual Studio 2019 or greater (any edition will work).


## v1.1, 20.12.2019

After a lot of work we're finally ready with support for much larger FPGAs that can provide acceleration for much more complex applications! Apart from this there are a lot of other news as well so we've bumped up Hastlayer's version number to v1.1. Check the details out below!

- Support for Microsoft's FPGA platform, [Project Catapult](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-catapult/). These FPGAs are vastly more resourceful than the Nexys with fast PCIe communication. Thus Hastlayer is now suitable in selected HPC use-cases.
- New samples:
  - `MonteCarloPiEstimator`: A Monte Carlo simulation computing the value of Pi in a highly parallelized manner.
  - `MemoryTest`: A test algorithm similar to the `Loopback` sample to test basic operations of a hardware device.
  - `FSharpParallelAlgorithm`: Not a C# but an F# sample, showcasing the same basic parallelization features as seen in `ParallelAlgorithm`. See [the issue](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/23).
- New linear-feedback shift register pseudo random number generator: `RandomLfsr` (check out the `MonteCarloPiEstimator` sample on how it can be useful). This is a simpler PRNG than the `RandomMwc64X` implementation we had before solely, and has lower resource usage, but produces lower quality random numbers. Also included the 16b `RandomLfsr16` and a xorshift version, `RandomXorshiftLfsr16`.
- [Optimizing InternalInvocationProxy ](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/30), thus dramatically lowering the resource usage of certain parallel algorithms as well as recursive algorithms while making their execution faster too.
- Adding transformation warning for too large arrays and displaying such arrays in the Consumer sample.
- Adding the ability to configure methods to be inlined without an attribute.
- Adding option to enable or disable constant substitution.
- Implement workaround for an [ILSpy bug](https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/issues/807).
- Fixing [SimdCalculator hardware execution](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/11).
- Improving documentation.
- Simplifying samples: no more extension methods for wrappers to be called by external consumers (all methods can be in the same classes).
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## 1.0.10, 08.06.2018

- Updating and fixing hardware timing values, making hardware execution more reliable, but in certain cases slightly slower, however also causing lower FPGA resource usage.
- Fixing that hardware description caching didn't work with certain programs.
- Improved documentation.


## 1.0.9, 18.03.2018

- New Loopback sample to test FPGA connectivity and Hastlayer Hardware Framework resource usage.
- Fixing that binary operator expressions (like  `1 + 2`) calculated with wrongly sized number types and could cause different results on the hardware than in software.
- Fixing remainder calculations (`9 % 4`).
- Making the lack of support for certain language features more apparent with specific exceptions.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.
- Improved documentation.

Note that running Hastlayer now requires Visual Studio 2017 or greater (any edition will work).


## 1.0.8, 13.01.2018

- Adding ability to inline methods to vastly improve performance if the method is small but called a lot of times.
- Adding support for `ref` and `out` parameters, see the [issue](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/15).
- `Fix64` fixed-point number type added for computations with fractions.
- Simplified configuration of parallelized code: no need to manually specify the degree of parallelism any more in most cases (see `ParallelAlgorithmSampleRunner` for example: `Configure()` is just one line now).
- Improving the speed of hardware generation by a few percent.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.

For all publicly tracked issues resolved with this release [see the corresponding milestone](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/milestone/1?closed=1).


## 1.0.7, 25.11.2017

- Adding sample with an implementation of the 3D [Kardar-Parisi-Zhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardar%E2%80%93Parisi%E2%80%93Zhang_equation) surface growth simulation algorithm. Made in collaboration with the [Wigner Research Centre for Physics](http://wigner.mta.hu/en/) to test against an existing GPU implementation (testing is upcoming).
- Fixing behavior of binary operator expressions were the operands were cast.
- Fixing exception when using public fields in certain cases.
- More helpful exception when a type was not found.
- The [Hastlayer Hardware Framework - Xilinx project](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-Hardware-Framework---Xilinx) got some scripts to automate updating the Vivado project with a new generated hardware design and to program the FPGA and launch the Xilinx SDK. From now on the project has a release cycle independent of the SDK.


## 1.0.6, 21.10.2017

- Transformation warnings are logged (and sent to the Debug console) so they can be detected easier.
- The decompiled .NET code is added to the VHDL output for debugging purposes in `Debug` mode, see the [issue](https://github.com/Lombiq/Hastlayer-SDK/issues/19).
- Fixing that if methods of an object instance called each other the call was wrongly transformed.
- Fixing that for void methods (and constructors) the transformed invocation wasn't properly awaited.
- Fixing that the hardware result was wrong if binary operations were done with <32b types.
- Fixing a constant substitution edge-case for nested if and while statements.
- Improved documentation.


## 1.0.5, 20.09.2017

- Fixing `HardwareGenerationConfiguration.AddHardwareEntryPointType()`, it now only adds the actual type as an entry point, not other types with similar names too.
- Improved documentation.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## 1.0.4, 08.09.2017

- The SDK and Hardware Framework for Xilinx FPGAs is open source.
- Fixing transformed shift operator behavior.
- Improved documentation.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## 1.0.3, 02.08.2017

- Improved caching and thus smaller response time for repeated transformations.
- Cleaning up and parallelizing the ImageFilter sample.
- Fixing casting/type conversions so now all casts result in hardware code that produces binary compatible results with .NET.
- Moving VHDL libraries to the .NET Transformer, thus allowing easier library updates.
- Improved documentation.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.

**Note** that since Hastlayer Hardware changed as well you'll need to either regenerate the Vivado and SDK projects (after purging or re-cloning the Hardware repo) or manually upgrade Hast_IP if you want to run the sample hardware (in Vivado go to Tools/Report/Report IP Status, then after Hast_IP is listed in the IP Status window as changed you'll need to follow the steps under the Hardware docs' "Running hardware designs" page). Otherwise you'll be able to run your own custom generated hardware as usual, but you'll need to re-generate them after pulling in updates from both repos.


## v1.0.2, 19.07.2017

- More reliable serial port selection.
- Remote Worker is sending telemetry to Azure Application Insights, allowing better production diagnostics.
- Improved documentation.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v1.0.1, 17.07.2017

- Improved support for unary increment/decrement operators (e.g. `number++`). Handling more cases now.
- Support for multi-assignments (e.g. `number1 = number2 = 4`).
- Improved exception messages.
- Improved Remote Worker stability and exception messages.
- Improved caching allowing full caching of generated hardware descriptions and thus faster repeated transformations.
- Improved documentation.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v1.0.0.1, 13.07.2017

- Improved documentation.
- Improved the stability of the Remote Worker that does remote transformations.


## v1.0, 12.07.2017

- Custom property support.
- `ImmutableArray` support.
- Support for `break` statements in loops too.
- Support for operator overloading.
- Restructured projects to cut down on what consumers need to depend on.
- Support for remote transformation.
- Support for null reference expressions (i.e. objects can be checked against `null` and `null` can be assigned to reference-holding variables, fields, etc.)
- Improved error messages.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v0.9, 28.05.2017

- Values resolvable at compile-time are substituted as constants, optimizing the resulting hardware and allowing more flexible array usage too.
- `Array.Copy()` support.
- Vastly improving automated test coverage with verification tests.
- Support for `byte` and `sbyte` types.
- Conditional expression support.
- Support for custom constructors.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v0.8, 08.02.2017

- Precise latencies determined for operations, thus making hardware execution more reliable.
- Hardware project updated for Vivado 2016.4
- Instance method support.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v0.7, 29.08.2016

- Generate hardware descriptions are cached.
- Generated VHDL is formatted and contains debug comments.
- Custom object support with classes and structs, but only with auto-properties at this time.
- New Hardware project source control setup where unnecessary files are not kept in the repository.
- Operation-level parallelism.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v0.6, 25.04.2016

- Array support.
- Support for .NET parallel constructs with TPL.
- Support for recursion.
- Ethernet communication channel.
- Hardware execution time is measured.
- 64b primitive types support.
- Various smaller bugfixes and improvements.


## v0.5, 28.02.2016

- Fully functional implementation with support for basic language constructs, using a serial communication channel.
- Documented samples.
- Runs on [Orchard](http://orchardproject.net) with [Orchard Application Host](https://github.com/Lombiq/Orchard-Application-Host).

Before this: Various proof of concept and experimental versions.