SOCAO: Source-to-Source OpenCL Compiler for Intel-Altera FPGAs

This paper describes the SOCAO source-to-source compiler that allows transforming C/C++ code into an OpenCL accelerated program targeting Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL. This drastically drops the requirements regarding the knowledge of the designers on parallel computing and hardware design, only C/C++ and the user-guide of the SOCAO compiler are now needed. Results show a 54% to 278% increase of speed for two well-known algorithms for cryptographic applications. The detailed description of the compiler, the user-guide and some outcomes of the project are also explained in this work.