AMD Versal AI Engine 2 GSPS 4K-point FFT

Overview

This project demonstrates a custom 2GSPS 4096-point FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) implementation optimized for the AMD® Versal™ AI Engine (AIE), AI Engine-ML (AIE-ML), and AI Engine-MLv2 (AIE-MLv2) architectures. Designed for high-throughput signal processing applications, this FFT leverages the parallelism and vector processing capabilities of the AIE / AIE-ML / AIE-MLv2 to deliver exceptional performance with a small footprint.

Whether you're working on radar, wireless communications, or real-time spectral analysis, this 4K FFT example is a powerful building block for your next Versal AI Engine design.

Key Features

• 4096-point FFT with support for complex 16-bit integer (cint16) input and complex 32-bit integer (cint32) output
• Optimized for Versal AI Engine, AI Engine-ML, and AI Engine-MLv2 vector cores
• High throughput using multiple AIE tiles and PLIO interfaces
• Modular graph-based design using Vitis™ and AI Engine APIs
• Testbench and simulation support for functional verification

Requirements

• AMD Vitis Unified IDE (2023.2 or later)
• Linux® based development environment
• Python® (for test automation and result validation)

Architecture

The 4K FFT is implemented as a multi-tile AIE graph, where each tile performs a portion of the FFT computation. The design consists of a 4x1024 transpose operation, a 4-point DFT, twiddle-factor multiplies, and four 1K FFTs from the Vitis DSP Library. A block diagram of the FFT architecture is shown in the figure below.

How to Build & Run

• Clone the repository

git clone https://gitlab.avnet.com/xilinx/versal/ai-engine/custom_4k_fft
cd custom_4k_fft

• Create a work directory

mkdir work
cd work

• Clone the Vitis Libraries repository

git clone https://github.com/Xilinx/Vitis_Libraries
cd Vitis_Libraries
git checkout <version>
cd ..

Note: replace <version> in the git checkout command above with the correct version based on the tool version being used; for example, <version> = 2024.2 for the 2024.2 tool release

• Source the Vitis environment setup script

source <Vitis install path>/settings64.sh

• Create a symbolic link to the test data directory

ln -s ../data

• Compile the AIE Graph for x86 functional simulation

v++ --compile --mode aie --target x86sim --platform <platform> \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L1/include/aie \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L1/src/aie \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L2/include/aie \
-I ../test \
-I ../source \
--work_dir Work \
../test/testbench.cpp \
--aie.Xpreproc -DFFT_INSTANCES=2

Notes:
1) Replace <platform> in the command above with the Vitis Platform name:

• For VEK385 use vek385_base for AIE-MLv2
• For VCK190 and VEK280 use xilinx_<board>_base_<version>_1
• replace <board> with vck190 for AIE or vek280 for AIE-ML
• replace <version> with the correct platform version based on the tool release being used.
• For 2024.1, <version> = 202410
• For 2024.2, <version> = 202420
• For 2025.1, <version> = 202510
• For 2025.2, <version> = 202520

2) The compile command above generates 1 FFT instance and 1 IFFT instance
The number of FFT instances is equal to ceiling(FFT_INSTANCES/2)
The number of IFFT instances is equal to floor(FFT_INSTANCES/2)

• Run x86 functional simulation

x86simulator

• Validate FFT & IFFT results

python3 ../scripts/python/verify_results.py --input data --x86sim_dir x86simulator_output/data/fft0 --direction 0 && \
python3 ../scripts/python/verify_results.py --input data --x86sim_dir x86simulator_output/data/ifft0 --direction 1

The python command will compare the results of the AIE x86 simulation with a python double-precision model. The python validation script should generate the following console output for the VCK190 platform:

AIE x86 functional FFT simulation results
Correlation | Max Magnitude Diff. | Max Relative Error (%)
------------+---------------------+-----------------------
  1.0000000 | 80.156              | 0.234


AIE x86 functional IFFT simulation results
Correlation | Max Magnitude Diff. | Max Relative Error (%)
------------+---------------------+-----------------------
  1.0000000 | 71.063              | 0.289

A correlation of 1 indicates that the x86 simulation results are geometrically aligned with a python model. The maximum magnitude difference and maximum relative error indicate the magnitude difference between the AIE implementation and the python model. The relative error is less than 1%, which indicates a high-level of accuracy.

Note: the model uses double-precision numerics, whereas the AIE implementation uses cint16 twiddle-factors and cint32 data precision, so there will not be bit-accuracy between the model & the AIE implementation.

• Compile for AIE HW simulation

v++ --compile --mode aie --target hw --platform <platform> \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L1/include/aie \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L1/src/aie \
-I ./Vitis_Libraries/dsp/L2/include/aie \
-I ../test \
-I ../source \
--work_dir Work \
../test/testbench.cpp \
--aie.Xpreproc -DFFT_INSTANCES=2

Notes:
1) Replace <platform> in the command above with the Vitis Platform name:

• For VEK385 use vek385_base for AIE-MLv2
• For VCK190 and VEK280 use xilinx_<board>_base_<version>_1
• replace <board> with vck190 for AIE or vek280 for AIE-ML
• replace <version> with the correct platform version based on the tool release being used.
• For 2024.1, <version> = 202410
• For 2024.2, <version> = 202420
• For 2025.1, <version> = 202510
• For 2025.2, <version> = 202520

2) The compile command above generates 1 FFT instance and 1 IFFT instance
The number of FFT instances is equal to ceiling(FFT_INSTANCES/2)
The number of IFFT instances is equal to floor(FFT_INSTANCES/2)

• Run AIE simulation

aiesimulator

The AIE simulator will generate throughput estimates in MBytes/second as shown in the log excerpt below for a VCK190 (AIE) simulation:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Intf Type   | Port Name                          | Type  | Throughput(MBps)  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 plio         | In0_even_fft                       | IN    | 4624.98           |
              | In0_odd_fft                        | IN    | 4623.29           |
              | In0_even_ifft                      | IN    | 4624.98           |
              | In0_odd_ifft                       | IN    | 4623.29           |
              | Out0_0_fft                         | OUT   | 4600.44           |
              | Out0_1_fft                         | OUT   | 4588.07           |
              | Out0_2_fft                         | OUT   | 4595.28           |
              | Out0_3_fft                         | OUT   | 4590.26           |
              | Out0_0_ifft                        | OUT   | 4600.44           |
              | Out0_1_ifft                        | OUT   | 4588.07           |
              | Out0_2_ifft                        | OUT   | 4595.28           |
              | Out0_3_ifft                        | OUT   | 4590.26           |

The average output sample throughput per transform instance is (4 x 4588 MBps) / (8 Bytes/sample) = 2294 MSPS on the VCK190.

Performance

The table below summarizes performance and AIE resource usage for the 4K FFT. No PL resources are required in computing the FFT.

Learn More

• GitLab Project Page

Disclaimers

• AMD, Versal, and Vitis are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
• Python is a registered trademark of the Python Software Foundation
• Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
• Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Updates

• January 26, 2026: Updated for AIE-MLv2