Hardware Acceleration of Minimap2 Genomic Sequence Alignment Algorithm

Sequence alignment, a crucial task in genome analysis for downstream applications such as mutation detection, faces challenges due to longer sequences and increased errors in the era of third-generation sequencing. This paper focuses on the optimization of Minimap2, a widely used alignment algorithm for mapping variable-length reads to extensive reference sequences. To enhance the algorithm's performance, we introduce a novel approach leveraging FPGA technology to expedite the time-consuming extension step.