A hybrid prototyping platform for dynamically reconfigurable designs

Abstract

This paper presents the architecture and the implementation of a novel general-purpose prototyping platform for dynamically reconfigurable designs1. Using dynamical reconfigurability the hardware can be reused even inside the data flow processing. This extends the capabilities of the hardware significantly. The presented platform enables rapid prototyping and verification of dynamic reconfiguration in large variety of designs in various applications. Due to its Linux-based operating system and versatile debugging and I/O capabilities, design time and effort to operate with the platform can be minimized. In this platform, dynamic reconfiguration is based on Atmel AT40K-series FPGA. The platform is the first one utilizing this FPGA architecture’s abilities in dynamic reconfiguration.