Speech recognition HMM training on reconfigurable parallel processor

Armstrong III is a 20 node multi-computer that is currently operational. In addition to a RISC processor, each node contains reconfigurable resources implemented with FPGAs. The in-circuit reprogramability of static RAM based FPGAs allows the computational capabilities of a node to be dynamically matched to the computational requirements of an application. Most reconfigurable computers in existence today rely solely on a large number of FPGAs to perform computations. In contrast, the paper demonstrates the utility of a small number of FPGAs coupled to a RISC processor with a simple interconnect. The article describes a substantive example application that performs HMM training for speech recognition with the reconfigurable platform.