Dr.-Ing. Johannes Pfau

Dr.-Ing. Johannes Pfau

Research interests

FPGA Architecture and Toolchain Research

Novel semiconductor technologies and increasing demand for low power reconfigurable hardware demands changes in the system architecture of FPGA devices. Here, replacing commonly used lookup tables with in-memory-computing cells or universal logic modules requires changes in both architecture and toolchain, as synthesizing applications for such FPGAs calls for specialized algorithms. Similar challenges arise when dealing with localized power management in power regions: Synthesis tools need to specially handle these regions to enable power reduction benefits in user applications.

FPGA Beamforming Application Design

To broaden understanding of the environment in regards to the Bio-, Geo-, Cryo- and Hydrosphere, space agencies investigate novel space-borne monitoring solutions for dynamical processes on earth’s surface. The satellites employed have to reduce the massive amount of radar data received before transmitting it back to earth, a task well suited for FPGA data processing. Moving the previously analog beamforming completely into digital FPGA domain, we reduce system complexity and at the same time enable integration of further data compression algorithm in the system.

 

FPGA High-Throughput Data Acquisition

As part of initial development plans for 6G mobile communication, test fields will be set up with initial prototypes and demonstrator devices. Tests will generate massive amounts of data received by prototype antennas, which will need to be stored for further investigation. Analog/Digital conversion and further flexible processing is enabled by RFSoC systems, a combination of A/D converter, FPGA and CPU. To enable storage of the data, multiple 100 Gbit/s links from multiple RFSoC boards need to be synchronized, transferred to server farms and saved onto storage systems.

 

Teaching

 

Student works to be assigned
title type

Supervised student works (selection)

  • BA: “Evaluation und Adaption von Open-Source FPGA-Architektur Frameworks“
  • SA: “Power Management Techniques in FPGA Architectures”
  • BA: “Design and Evaluation of Manual Placement Techniques for V-FPGA Tiles on FPGA”
  • BA: “Design and Evaluation of Hard-Logic Adder Extensions for Virtual FPGAs”
  • MA: “Designing a Framework to Evaluate the Performance of Region-based FPGA Power Management Using VPR”
  • MA: “Entwurf einer dynamisch aktualisierbaren Filterarchitektur für Digitales Beamforming mit hohem Datendurchsatz”
  • BA: “Implementation of a Data-Driven, Semi-Autonomous Control for the KIT Prosthetic Hand”

Publications


2024
PhD Theses
RFET Reconfigurable Devices: Power Aware FPGA Architectures and Toolflow. PhD dissertation
Pfau, J.
2024, November 15. Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT). doi:10.5445/IR/1000174452
2023
Conference Papers
Co-Simulating Region-Based Dynamic Voltage Scaling for FPGA Architecture Design
Pfau, J.; Hernandez, J.; Reuter, M.; Hofmann, K.; Becker, J.
2023. 2023 IEEE Nordic Circuits and Systems Conference (NorCAS), Aalborg, 31st October - 01st November 2023, 7 S., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/NorCAS58970.2023.10305486
Automated Replacement of State-Holding Flip-Flops to Enable Non-Volatile Checkpointing
Kreß, F.; Pfau, J.; Kempf, F.; Schmidt, P.; He, Z.; Harbaum, T.; Becker, J.
2023. 2023 IEEE Nordic Circuits and Systems Conference (NorCAS), 31st October - 1st November 2023, Aalborg, Denmark, 1–7, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/NorCAS58970.2023.10305469
Broadband MIMO Testbed for the Development and Research on 6G
Nuss, B.; Groeschel, P.; Pfau, J.; Becker, J.; Vossiek, M.; Zwick, T.
2023. European Wireless 2022 ; 27th European Wireless Conference, Dresden, 19th - 21st September 2022, 89 – 91, VDE VERLAG GMBH
Design and Implementation of Staggered-SAR Azimuth-Processing
Marten, J. C.; Younis, M.; Krieger, G.; Pfau, J.; Unger, K.; Becker, J.
2023. 24th International Radar Symposium (IRS), Berlin, Germany, 24-26 May 2023, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.23919/IRS57608.2023.10172405
A Unified SoC Lab Course: Combined Teaching of Mixed Signal Aspects, System Integration, Software Development and Documentation
Pfau, J.; Leys, R.; Neu, M.; Serdyuk, A.; Peric, I.; Becker, J.
2023. 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 5 S., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/ISCAS46773.2023.10181679
LETSCOPE: Lifecycle Extensions Through Software-Defined Predictive Control of Power Electronics
Chu, A.; Hermann, C. M.; Silz, J.; Pfau, J.; Barón, K. M.; Anantharajaiah, N.; Schmidt, P.; Hotfilter, T.; Xie, X.; Becker, J.; Kallfass, I.; Roth-Stielow, J.; Stork, W.
2023. IEEE EUROCON 2023 - 20th International Conference on Smart Technologies, 665–670, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/EUROCON56442.2023.10199076
ReLoDAQ: Resource-Efficient, Low-Overhead 200 Gbits −1 Data Acquisition System for 6G Prototyping
Karle, C.; Neu, M.; Pfau, J.; Sperling, J.; Becker, J.
2023. 2023 IEEE 31st Annual International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM), 08-11 May 2023, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA, 209, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/FCCM57271.2023.00037
2022
Journal Articles
V-FPGAs: Increasing Performance with Manual Placement, Timing Extraction and Extended Timing Modeling
Pfau, J.; Zaki, P. W.; Becker, J.
2022. Journal of Signal Processing Systems, 94, 865–882. doi:10.1007/s11265-022-01786-z
Conference Papers
Reconfiguring an RFET Based Differential Amplifier
Reuter, M.; Kramer, A.; Krauss, T.; Pfau, J.; Becker, J.; Hofmann, K.
2022. 2022 IEEE 40th Central America and Panama Convention (CONCAPAN), 1–6, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/CONCAPAN48024.2022.9997726
A hardware/software co-design approach to prototype 6G mobile applications inside the GNU Radio SDR Ecosystem using FPGA hardware accelerators
Karle, C. M.; Kreutzer, M.; Pfau, J.; Becker, J.
2022. HEART2022: International Symposium on Highly-Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies, Tsukuba Japan, June 9 - 10, 2022, 33–41, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi:10.1145/3535044.3535049
2021
Journal Articles
From MOSFETs to Ambipolar Transistors: Standard Cell Synthesis for the Planar RFET Technology
Reuter, M.; Pfau, J.; Krauss, T. A.; Becker, J.; Hofmann, K.
2021. IEEE transactions on circuits and systems / 1, 68 (1), 114–125. doi:10.1109/TCSI.2020.3035889
Conference Papers
Designing Universal Logic Module FPGA Architectures for Use With Ambipolar Transistor Technology
Pfau, J.; Reuter, M.; Hofmann, K.; Becker, J.
2021. 2020 International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (ICFPT), Maui, HI, USA, 09-11 December 2020, 165–173, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/ICFPT51103.2020.00031
Evaluation of Different Manual Placement Strategies to Ensure Uniformity of the V-FPGA
Pfau, J.; Zaki, P. W.; Becker, J.
2021. Applied Reconfigurable Computing. Architectures, Tools, and Applications: 17th International Symposium, ARC 2021, Virtual Event, June 29–30, 2021, Proceedings. Ed.: S. Derrien, 35–49, Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79025-7_3
2020
Conference Papers
A Hardware Perspective on the ChaCha Ciphers: Scalable Chacha8/12/20 Implementations Ranging from 476 Slices to Bitrates of 175 Gbit/s
Pfau, J.; Reuter, M.; Harbaum, T.; Hofmann, K.; Becker, J.
2020. 2019 32nd IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference (SOCC), Singapore, 3-6 Sept. 2019, 294–299, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/SOCC46988.2019.1570548289
Towards Ambipolar Planar Devices: The DeFET Device in Area Constrained XOR Applications
Reuter, M.; Pfau, J.; Krauss, T. A.; Moradinasab, M.; Schwalke, U.; Becker, J.; Hofmann, K.
2020. Proceedings of the 11th IEEE Latin American Symposium on Circuits & Systems (LASCAS), San Jose, Costa Rica, February 15-28, 2020, Article No. 9069043, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/LASCAS45839.2020.9069043
2019
Conference Papers
From MOSFETs to Ambipolar Transistors: A Static DeFET Inverter Cell for SOI
Reuter, M.; Krauss, T. A.; Moradinasab, M.; Pfau, J.; Schwalke, U.; Becker, J.; Hofmann, K.
2019. Proceedings. 2019 IEEE Asia Pacific Conference on Circuits and Systems : Royal Orchind Sheraton Hotel and Towers Bangkok, Thailand, November 11-14, 2019, 113–116, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi:10.1109/APCCAS47518.2019.8953083
2018
Conference Papers
Reconfigurable FPGA-Based Channelization Using Polyphase Filter Banks for Quantum Computing Systems
Pfau, J.; Figuli, S. P. D.; Bähr, S.; Becker, J.
2018. Applied Reconfigurable Computing - Architectures, Tools, and Applications, Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium, ARC 2018, Santorini, Greece, 2nd - 4th May 2018. Ed.: Nikolaos Voros, 615–626, Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78890-6_49
2016
Journal Articles
Development of a Latency Optimized Communication Device for WAVE and SAE Based V2X-Applications
Pistorius, F.; Lauber, A.; Pfau, J.; Klimm, A.; Becker, J.
2016. SAE technical papers, 2016-April, 1–11. doi:10.4271/2016-01-0150