Efficient methods of resource management in re-programmable systems

• Autores: Rafal Kielbik
• Directores de la Tesis: Juan Manuel Moreno Arostegui (dir. tes.), Andrzej K. T. Napieralski (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2006
• Idioma: español
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Joan Cabestany Moncusí (presid.), J. Carrabina (secret.), Eduardo Sánchez (voc.), Miguel Ángel Aguirre (voc.), Gilles Sassatelli (voc.)
• Materias:
  • Física
    • Electrónica
      • Circuitos
      • Circuitos integrados
  • Ciencias tecnológicas
    • Tecnología electrónica
      • Diseño de circuitos
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The advent of programmable electronic devices (FPGAs - Field Programmable Gate Arrays) more than 20 years ago represented an important milestone within the electronic design field. Opposite to the design based on devices with static functionality that was commonplace until that moment, these new devices permit to modify or update the functionality of the system, if required, without the need of re-designing the physical substrate (components and boards) supporting the application. The modification of the functionality implemented is carried out through a re-programming process that basically consists in writing the new configuration on the device. In the first families of programmable devices this re-programming process implied to write the whole configuration of the device. Therefore, when a new re-programming process was started the normal operation of the application had to be halted.

    Furthermore, the time needed to obtain a new functionality (in the order of milliseconds to seconds) was usually longer than the clock period of the application.

    This situation has significantly changed during the last years with the availability of new families of programmable devices with dynamic reconfiguration capabilities.

    Dynamic reconfiguration means the re-programming process of a device that may modify partially or totally the functionality implemented and that can be carried out while the system is in normal operation. Furthermore, this re-configuration process has a time frame similar to that required by the operations to be carried out by the system. Even if these new families of programmable devices offer clear advantages over their static counterparts, its use is still limited by the lack of tools able to manage efficiently the features offered by the devices.