Title: A system approach for partially reconfigurable architectures

Authors: Heiko Kalte, Boris Kettelhoit, Markus Koester, Mario Porrmann, Ulrich Ruckert

Addresses: School of Computer Science Software Engineering, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia. ' Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany. ' Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany. ' Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany. ' Heinz Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

Abstract: The increasing logic density of current Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) enables the integration of whole systems on one programmable chip. Using concepts of partial dynamic reconfiguration allows the adaptation of complex systems to changing requirements at run-time. In this paper we present a realisable approach for dynamic system integration on Xilinx Virtex FPGAs. In contrast to existing approaches that consider fixed slots for module placement, our approach allows fine-grained placement of modules with variable width along a horizontal communication infrastructure. By simulation we show that the proposed 1D-approach outperforms 2D-approaches by means of the device utilisation and external fragmentation.

Keywords: 1D-placement; partial reconfiguration; reconfigurable computing; FPGA; reconfigurable architectures; dynamic reconfiguration; fine-grained placement; simulation; field programmable gate arrays.

DOI: 10.1504/IJES.2005.009956

International Journal of Embedded Systems, 2005 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.274 - 290

Published online: 05 Jun 2006 *

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