Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 04:33:06 12/18/99
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On December 17, 1999 at 22:58:36, Dann Corbit wrote:
>The USENET newsgroup news:comp.arch.fpga people could tell you about feasibility
>for your design.
Thanks for starting a very interesting thread in that newsgroup, Dann! I really
learned something about modern FPGAs. Amazing stuff.
Just a few comments about the discussion:
* The chip should be able to execute simple, small (4 ply?) searches on its own,
and then report back to the "main program" running on a normal computer. The
main program takes care of the hash table and opening book and so forth, so it's
not necessary for the chip to access megabytes of information. However, it is
necessary for the chip to be able to detect repetitions, which does take memory.
If you use the FPGA's on-board memory for this, it might be pretty efficient.
* With this setup, the chip doesn't really need an instruction set. You should
just be able to give it the board position and have it return a number.
* Chess really is ideal for logic design. Everything except for searching can be
done in parallel. That's how DB can be so bloody fast.
I think it might be possible to make a simple chess engine with an FPGA. I'm
sure you can't do anything nearly as complicated (as strong) as Deep Blue, but
it would still be a very interesting project. At least if you're interested in
digital design, like me. =)
-Tom
>
>In fact, I just posted this message over there:
>
>Subject: Dumb question springing from a discussion about chess on a chip...
>
>There is a recent discussion on the computer chess club internet forum about the
>feasibility of creating a chess chip using FPGA. Now, a chess chip *must* have
>very fast access to large amounts of shared memory, and also be able to execute
>an instruction set (much like a general purpose CPU -- but the instruction set
>is {of course} specialized for chess).
>
>My question:
>Is it a good idea to attempt this with an FPGA, or should a general purpose CPU
>be fabricated or should it be done with something else entirely?
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