HoneyComb: an application-driven online adaptive reconfigurable hardware architecture

ABSTRACT

Since the introduction of the first reconfigurable devices in 1985 the field of reconfigurable computing developed a broad variety of architectures from fine-grained to coarse-grained types. However, the main disadvantages of the reconfigurable approaches, the costs in area and power consumption, are still present. This contribution presents a solution for application driven adaptation of our reconfigurable architecture at register transfer level (RTL) to reduce the resource requirements and power consumption while keeping the flexibility and performance for a predefined set of applications. Furthermore, implemented runtime adaptive features like online routing and configuration sequencing will be presented and discussed. A presentation of the prototype chip of this architecture designed in TSMC 90 nm standard cell technology, which is currently in production, will conclude this contribution.

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Index Terms

• Computer systems organization

  • Architectures

    • Other architectures

      • Heterogeneous (hybrid) systems

      • Reconfigurable computing

      • Self-organizing autonomic computing

    • Serial architectures

      • Pipeline computing