02-07-2010, 07:10 PM
Reconfigurable computing
Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture which combines flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing using the field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). We can make changes to the datapath itself in addition to the control flow. application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) differs from it in that it can "load" a new circuit on the reconfigurable fabric.
Current systems
The present systems are classified into hybrid computer and fully FPGA based . A hybrid computer has reconfigurable logic chip, FPGAs, with a standard microprocessor. they are Von-Neumann based architectures with an integrated FPGA accelerator.
Whereas the fully FPGA based computers doesn't have any CPUs or uses the CPUs only as interface to the network environment.
Comparison of systems
Many new reconfigurable architectures are still being developed. The following properties are used to classify the systems:
-Granularity:
It is the size of the smallest functional unit (configurable logic block, CLB) handled by the mapping tools. High granularity means higher flexibility when implementing algorithms into the hardware. for the algorithms needing word-width data paths, Coarse-grained architectures (rDPA) has been designed
-Rate of reconfiguration:
This can occur between execution phases or during execution. a bit stream is used to program the device at deployment time.
-Host coupling:type of data transfers, latency, power, throughput and overheads is determined by the level of coupling.
-Routing/interconnects:
-tool flow
for more details, refer these links:
http://en.wikipediawiki/Reconfigurable_computing
an intro to reconfigurable computing.pdf (Size: 121.1 KB / Downloads: 169)
Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture which combines flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing using the field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). We can make changes to the datapath itself in addition to the control flow. application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) differs from it in that it can "load" a new circuit on the reconfigurable fabric.
Current systems
The present systems are classified into hybrid computer and fully FPGA based . A hybrid computer has reconfigurable logic chip, FPGAs, with a standard microprocessor. they are Von-Neumann based architectures with an integrated FPGA accelerator.
Whereas the fully FPGA based computers doesn't have any CPUs or uses the CPUs only as interface to the network environment.
Comparison of systems
Many new reconfigurable architectures are still being developed. The following properties are used to classify the systems:
-Granularity:
It is the size of the smallest functional unit (configurable logic block, CLB) handled by the mapping tools. High granularity means higher flexibility when implementing algorithms into the hardware. for the algorithms needing word-width data paths, Coarse-grained architectures (rDPA) has been designed
-Rate of reconfiguration:
This can occur between execution phases or during execution. a bit stream is used to program the device at deployment time.
-Host coupling:type of data transfers, latency, power, throughput and overheads is determined by the level of coupling.
-Routing/interconnects:
-tool flow
for more details, refer these links:
http://en.wikipediawiki/Reconfigurable_computing
an intro to reconfigurable computing.pdf (Size: 121.1 KB / Downloads: 169)