Reconfigurable Machine and Its Application to Logic Simulation (Special Section on VLSI Design and CAD Algorithms)

概要

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This paper presents a Reconfigurable Machine (RM), capable of efficiently implementing a wide range of computationally complex algorithms. Its highly flexible architecture combining FPGA's with RAM's supports a wide range of applications. Since its "gate-level programmability" allows us to implement various kinds of parallel processing techniques, RM provides a performance comparable to existing "special-purpose" engines. The in-circuit reconfiguration capability of FPGA's is used to reload several kinds of configuration data during power on. Thus, RM behaves itself like a general-purpose computer applicable to various kinds of applications by loading programs. A Reconfigurable Machine-I (RM-I) has been built as the first prototype incorporating five FPGA's and four SRAM memory banks. RM-I has been applied to a multiple-delay Logic Simulator (LSIM). Employing pipeline architecture, LSIM has achieved a performance of 1 million gate events per second at 4 MHz. The concept of RM is the best solution to the trade-offs between general-purpose machines and special-purpose ones. RM will be a hardware platform accelerating a wide range of applications, also offering an interesting problem in high-level synthesis.
社団法人電子情報通信学会の論文
1993-10-25