Plastic cell architecture: A dynamically reconfigurable hardware-based computer

Abstract

This paper describes a dynamically reconfigurable hardware-based computer called the Plastic Cell Architecture (PCA). PCA consists of dualstructured sea-of-cells that consist of a built-ln part and a plastic part. The built-in part forms ‘cellular automata’ while the plastic part looks like an SRAM-based FPGA. We detail the design flow especially how to implement logic onto the processing element. The advantages of PCA, considering VLSI implementation and several application examples, are also described.