Trying oneAPI on Arria® 10 GX FPGA

[CShih23]

I want to utilize OpenCL or oneAPI to facilitate communication between the host and FPGA. The board I'm using is the Arria® 10 GX FPGA Development Kit (10AX115S2F45I1SG).

I have attempted this setup using Ubuntu 22.04 with oneAPI 2024.1 (and Quartus prime 23.2). During the process, I executed the command:

aocl install /opt/intel/oneapi/2024.1/opt/oclfpga/board/intel_a10gx_pac

It showed:

Do you want to setup the FCD at directory /opt/Intel/OpenCL/Boards [Y/n] y
aocl install: Setting up the FPGA Client Driver (FCD) to the system. This process may require admin privilege
Install the FCD file to /opt/Intel/OpenCL/Boards
aocl install: Adding the board package /opt/intel/oneapi/2024.1/opt/oclfpga/board/intel_a10gx_pac to the list of installed packages
Installing the board package driver to the system.
aocl install: Running install from /opt/intel/oneapi/2024.1/opt/oclfpga/board/intel_a10gx_pac/linux64/libexec
Error: unsupported OS: Ubuntu 22.04 kernel 6.5.0-28-generic
aocl install: failed.
aocl install: Removing FCD
aocl install: Removing the board package /opt/intel/oneapi/2024.1/opt/oclfpga/board/intel_a10gx_pac from the list of installed packages

However, the setup did not work. I also attempted the same setup with Ubuntu 20.04, but encountered similar issues.

My assumption was that the BSP 'intel_a10gx_pac' would work for the Arria 10 GX, but I'm unsure if it is compatible with the a10gx? or if there is a BSP for the a10gx?

I have also considered using OpenCL, but it seems that the BSP for a10gx only supports OpenCL to 20.2, which is compatible with Ubuntu 18.04. I am uncertain whether I should proceed with this approach or if I need to develop a custom BSP. Is there a recommended method doing this?

Any suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.

[aikeu]

Hi CShih23,

Let me check with the team for any info regarding your questions.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu

[aikeu]

Hi CShih23,

OpenCL is already on deprecated notice, hence there would be limited support.

For the A10 GX BSP installation you can refer to the following link for the installation and prerequisite:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/installation-guide-linux/2023-0/install-intel-pac-bsps.html

Referring to "For Systems Not Connected to a PAC Board" and only Ubuntu 18 supported.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu

[CShih23]

Hi, Aik Eu

The document provided references version 2023-0. Is this also valid for version 2024-1? According to the https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/system-requirements/intel-oneapi-base-toolkit-system-requirements.html , the supported operating systems are 20.04 and 22.04. Should I install oneAPI version 2023-0?

Thanks.

[aikeu]

Hi CShih23,

I think is ok to use the version for the reference dated back to 2023 as it is still a version suggested in the same document.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu

[CShih23]

Hi, Aik Eu

So, I signed up for the oneAPI cloud, and found the OS version is indeed 18.04.
However, the folder structure under /opt/intel/oneapi

u222498@login-2:~$ ls /opt/intel/oneapi/
2024.1               compiler       dnnl             intelpython      logs                  openpgl        rkutil
advisor              dal            dpcpp-ct         intel_s10sx_pac  mkl                   openvkl        setvars.sh
ai_reference_models  de10_agilex    dpl              ipp              modulefiles-setup.sh  ospray         support.txt
basekit              debugger       embree           ippcp            mpi                   ospray_studio  tbb
ccl                  dev-utilities  hpckit           ispc             oidn                  renderkit      tcm
common               diagnostics    intel_a10gx_pac  licensing        oneApi-samples        rkcommon       vtune

is a bit different from what I have downloaded

aaaaa@aaaaaa:~$ ls /opt/intel/oneapi/
2024.1   ccl       dal            diagnostics  dpl        ippcp      mkl                   setvars.sh   tcm
advisor  common    debugger       dnnl         installer  licensing  modulefiles-setup.sh  support.txt  vtune
basekit  compiler  dev-utilities  dpcpp-ct     ipp        logs       mpi                   tbb

There's no intel_a10gx_pac/bringup/opae there.

Is the BSP downloadable from the website?

[aikeu]

Hi CShih23,

The bsp you are referring to:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/oneapi/programming-guide/2023-2/fpga-bsps-and-boards.html

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu

[CShih23]

Hi, Aik Eu

The link you provided just describes what is BSP and flags when using icpx -fsycl  targeting different boards. It does not link to any downloadable contents. 
The note below says Intel® FPGA Add-On for oneAPI Base Toolkit provides full BSPs, which are necessary for generating the FPGA hardware image, which brought me to https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/tools/oneapi/fpga.html#linklist.
However, I did not see a10gx BSP listed there.

Thanks.

[whitepau]

arria10 gx PAC is a different card from the arria 10 gx devkit.

Assuming the Arria 10 GX Devkit you have is this one: 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/fpga/development-kits/arria/10-gx.html 

then the BSP you want to use is actually a10_ref.

You can get the a10_ref BSP from the 19.2 installer of the FPGA SDK for OpenCL: 

https://cdrdv2.intel.com/v1/dl/getContent/661712/661752?filename=AOCLProSetup-19.2.0.57-linux.run

If you run that installer, the BSP will be in 

~/intelFPGA_pro/19.2/hld/board/a10_ref

I don't know if this BSP will work with 2024.2. You will need Quartus® Prime Pro 19.2 in order to use that BSP, and I think that oneAPI only guarantees compatibility with 3 years of previous Quartus® Prime releases. You might be stuck on like, oneAPI 2022.3 or something.

You can get older versions of oneAPI from the linux package manager with

sudo apt install intel-basekit-2023.2.0

When you install Quartus® Prime, you can either download the whole installer (~40 GB) or just the main compiler with Arria™ 10 support:

FYI that board, compiler and Quartus® Prime are all very very much out of support. You can use this setup to breathe some life into your old accelerator card and learn the ropes of oneAPI, but if you want to use a more recent version of the oneAPI tools, you will need to update the BSP and possibly do some other runtime changes that I am completely unqualified to help you with

[aikeu]

Hi whitepau,

Thanks for helping in providing those information.

Hi CShih23,

I am now transition this thread to community support. If you have a new question, Please login to ‘https://supporttickets.intel.com’, view details of the desire request, and post a feed/response within the next 15 days to allow me to continue to support you. After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you on your follow-up question.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu