Desde a diminuição da tendência de aumento na frequência de processadores, uma nova tendência surgiu para permitir que softwares tirem proveito de harwares mais rápidos: a paralelização. Contudo, diferente de aumentar a frequência de processadores, utilizar parallelização requer um tipo diferente de programação, a programação paralela, que é geralmente mais difícil que a programação sequencial comum. Neste contexto, a paralelização automática apareceu, permitindo que o software tire proveito do paralelismo sem a necessidade de programação paralela. Nós apresentamos aqui duas propostas: SAT-PaDdlinG e RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG é um SAT Solver DPLL paralelo que roda em GPU, o que permite que RePaSAT utilize esse ambiente. RePaSAT é a nossa proposta de uma máquina paralela que utiliza o Problema SAT para paralelizar automaticamente código sequencial. Como uma GPU provê um ambiente barato e massivamente paralelo, SAT-PaDdlinG tem como objetivo prover esse paralelismo massivo a baixo custo para RePaSAT, como para qualquer outra ferramenta ou problema que utilize SAT Solvers. / Since the slowdown in improvement in the frequency of processors, a new tendency has arisen to allow software to take advantage of faster hardware: parallelization. However, different from increasing the frequency of processors, using parallelization requires a different kind of programming, parallel programming, which is usually harder than common sequential programming. In this context, automatic parallelization has arisen, allowing software to take advantage of parallelism without the need of parallel programming. We present here two proposals: SAT-PaDdlinG and RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG is a parallel DPLL SAT Solver on GPU, which allows RePaSAT to use this environment. RePaSAT is our proposal of a parallel machine that uses the SAT Problem to automatically parallelize sequential code. Because GPU provides a cheap, massively parallel environment, SATPaDdlinG aims at providing this massive parallelism and low cost to RePaSAT, as well as to any other tool or problem that uses SAT Solvers.

Desde a diminuição da tendência de aumento na frequência de processadores, uma nova tendência surgiu para permitir que softwares tirem proveito de harwares mais rápidos: a paralelização. Contudo, diferente de aumentar a frequência de processadores, utilizar parallelização requer um tipo diferente de programação, a programação paralela, que é geralmente mais difícil que a programação sequencial comum. Neste contexto, a paralelização automática apareceu, permitindo que o software tire proveito do paralelismo sem a necessidade de programação paralela. Nós apresentamos aqui duas propostas: SAT-PaDdlinG e RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG é um SAT Solver DPLL paralelo que roda em GPU, o que permite que RePaSAT utilize esse ambiente. RePaSAT é a nossa proposta de uma máquina paralela que utiliza o Problema SAT para paralelizar automaticamente código sequencial. Como uma GPU provê um ambiente barato e massivamente paralelo, SAT-PaDdlinG tem como objetivo prover esse paralelismo massivo a baixo custo para RePaSAT, como para qualquer outra ferramenta ou problema que utilize SAT Solvers. / Since the slowdown in improvement in the frequency of processors, a new tendency has arisen to allow software to take advantage of faster hardware: parallelization. However, different from increasing the frequency of processors, using parallelization requires a different kind of programming, parallel programming, which is usually harder than common sequential programming. In this context, automatic parallelization has arisen, allowing software to take advantage of parallelism without the need of parallel programming. We present here two proposals: SAT-PaDdlinG and RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG is a parallel DPLL SAT Solver on GPU, which allows RePaSAT to use this environment. RePaSAT is our proposal of a parallel machine that uses the SAT Problem to automatically parallelize sequential code. Because GPU provides a cheap, massively parallel environment, SATPaDdlinG aims at providing this massive parallelism and low cost to RePaSAT, as well as to any other tool or problem that uses SAT Solvers.

Desde a diminuição da tendência de aumento na frequência de processadores, uma nova tendência surgiu para permitir que softwares tirem proveito de harwares mais rápidos: a paralelização. Contudo, diferente de aumentar a frequência de processadores, utilizar parallelização requer um tipo diferente de programação, a programação paralela, que é geralmente mais difícil que a programação sequencial comum. Neste contexto, a paralelização automática apareceu, permitindo que o software tire proveito do paralelismo sem a necessidade de programação paralela. Nós apresentamos aqui duas propostas: SAT-PaDdlinG e RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG é um SAT Solver DPLL paralelo que roda em GPU, o que permite que RePaSAT utilize esse ambiente. RePaSAT é a nossa proposta de uma máquina paralela que utiliza o Problema SAT para paralelizar automaticamente código sequencial. Como uma GPU provê um ambiente barato e massivamente paralelo, SAT-PaDdlinG tem como objetivo prover esse paralelismo massivo a baixo custo para RePaSAT, como para qualquer outra ferramenta ou problema que utilize SAT Solvers. / Since the slowdown in improvement in the frequency of processors, a new tendency has arisen to allow software to take advantage of faster hardware: parallelization. However, different from increasing the frequency of processors, using parallelization requires a different kind of programming, parallel programming, which is usually harder than common sequential programming. In this context, automatic parallelization has arisen, allowing software to take advantage of parallelism without the need of parallel programming. We present here two proposals: SAT-PaDdlinG and RePaSAT. SAT-PaDdlinG is a parallel DPLL SAT Solver on GPU, which allows RePaSAT to use this environment. RePaSAT is our proposal of a parallel machine that uses the SAT Problem to automatically parallelize sequential code. Because GPU provides a cheap, massively parallel environment, SATPaDdlinG aims at providing this massive parallelism and low cost to RePaSAT, as well as to any other tool or problem that uses SAT Solvers.

Quoique très difficile à résoudre, le problème de satisfiabilité Booléenne (SAT) est fréquemment utilisé lors de la modélisation d’applications industrielles. À cet effet, les deux dernières décennies ont vu une progression fulgurante des outils conçus pour trouver des solutions à ce problème NP-complet. Deux grandes avenues générales ont été explorées afin de produire ces outils, notamment l’approche logicielle et matérielle. Afin de raffiner et améliorer ces solveurs, de nombreuses techniques et heuristiques ont été proposées par la communauté de recherche. Le but final de ces outils a été de résoudre des problèmes de taille industrielle, ce qui a été plus ou moins accompli par les solveurs de nature logicielle. Initialement, le but de l’utilisation du matériel reconfigurable a été de produire des solveurs pouvant trouver des solutions plus rapidement que leurs homologues logiciels. Cependant, le niveau de sophistication de ces derniers a augmenté de telle manière qu’ils restent le meilleur choix pour résoudre SAT. Toutefois, les solveurs modernes logiciels n’arrivent toujours pas a trouver des solutions de manière efficace à certaines instances SAT. Le but principal de ce mémoire est d’explorer la résolution du problème SAT dans le contexte du matériel reconfigurable en vue de caractériser les ingrédients nécessaires d’un solveur SAT efficace qui puise sa puissance de calcul dans le parallélisme conféré par une plateforme FPGA. Le prototype parallèle implémenté dans ce travail est capable de se mesurer, en termes de vitesse d’exécution à d’autres solveurs (matériels et logiciels), et ce sans utiliser aucune heuristique. Nous montrons donc que notre approche matérielle présente une option prometteuse vers la résolution d’instances industrielles larges qui sont difficilement abordées par une approche logicielle. / Though very difficult to solve, the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) is extensively used to model various real-world applications and problems. Over the past two decades, researchers have tried to provide tools that are used, to a certain degree, to find solutions to the Boolean satisfiability problem. The nature of these tools is broadly divided in software and reconfigurable hardware solvers. In addition, the main algorithms used to solve this problem have also been complemented with heuristics of various levels of sophistication to help overcome some of the NP-hardness of the problem. The end goal of these tools has been to provide solutions to industrial-sized problems of enormous size. Initially, reconfigurable hardware tools provided a promising avenue to accelerating SAT solving over traditional software based solutions. However, the level of sophistication of software solvers overcame their hardware counterparts, which remained limited to smaller problem instances. Even so, modern state-of-the-art software solvers still fail unpredictably on some instances. The main focus of this thesis is to explore solving SAT on reconfigurable hardware in order to gain an understanding of what would be essential ingredients to add (and discard) to a very efficient hardware SAT solver that obtains its processing power from the raw parallelism of an FPGA platform. The parallel prototype solver that was implemented in this work has been found to be comparable with other hardware and software solvers in terms of execution speed even though no heuristics or other helping techniques were implemented. We thus show that our approach provides a very promising avenue to solving large, industrial SAT instances that might be difficult to handle by software solvers.

Quoique très difficile à résoudre, le problème de satisfiabilité Booléenne (SAT) est fréquemment utilisé lors de la modélisation d’applications industrielles. À cet effet, les deux dernières décennies ont vu une progression fulgurante des outils conçus pour trouver des solutions à ce problème NP-complet. Deux grandes avenues générales ont été explorées afin de produire ces outils, notamment l’approche logicielle et matérielle. Afin de raffiner et améliorer ces solveurs, de nombreuses techniques et heuristiques ont été proposées par la communauté de recherche. Le but final de ces outils a été de résoudre des problèmes de taille industrielle, ce qui a été plus ou moins accompli par les solveurs de nature logicielle. Initialement, le but de l’utilisation du matériel reconfigurable a été de produire des solveurs pouvant trouver des solutions plus rapidement que leurs homologues logiciels. Cependant, le niveau de sophistication de ces derniers a augmenté de telle manière qu’ils restent le meilleur choix pour résoudre SAT. Toutefois, les solveurs modernes logiciels n’arrivent toujours pas a trouver des solutions de manière efficace à certaines instances SAT. Le but principal de ce mémoire est d’explorer la résolution du problème SAT dans le contexte du matériel reconfigurable en vue de caractériser les ingrédients nécessaires d’un solveur SAT efficace qui puise sa puissance de calcul dans le parallélisme conféré par une plateforme FPGA. Le prototype parallèle implémenté dans ce travail est capable de se mesurer, en termes de vitesse d’exécution à d’autres solveurs (matériels et logiciels), et ce sans utiliser aucune heuristique. Nous montrons donc que notre approche matérielle présente une option prometteuse vers la résolution d’instances industrielles larges qui sont difficilement abordées par une approche logicielle. / Though very difficult to solve, the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) is extensively used to model various real-world applications and problems. Over the past two decades, researchers have tried to provide tools that are used, to a certain degree, to find solutions to the Boolean satisfiability problem. The nature of these tools is broadly divided in software and reconfigurable hardware solvers. In addition, the main algorithms used to solve this problem have also been complemented with heuristics of various levels of sophistication to help overcome some of the NP-hardness of the problem. The end goal of these tools has been to provide solutions to industrial-sized problems of enormous size. Initially, reconfigurable hardware tools provided a promising avenue to accelerating SAT solving over traditional software based solutions. However, the level of sophistication of software solvers overcame their hardware counterparts, which remained limited to smaller problem instances. Even so, modern state-of-the-art software solvers still fail unpredictably on some instances. The main focus of this thesis is to explore solving SAT on reconfigurable hardware in order to gain an understanding of what would be essential ingredients to add (and discard) to a very efficient hardware SAT solver that obtains its processing power from the raw parallelism of an FPGA platform. The parallel prototype solver that was implemented in this work has been found to be comparable with other hardware and software solvers in terms of execution speed even though no heuristics or other helping techniques were implemented. We thus show that our approach provides a very promising avenue to solving large, industrial SAT instances that might be difficult to handle by software solvers.