Analysis of reconfigurable logic blocks for evolvable digital architectures

Abstract

In this paper we propose three small instances of a reconfigurable circuit and analyze their properties using the brute force method and evolutionary algorithm. Although proposed circuits are very similar, significant differences were demonstrated, namely in the number of unique designs they can implement, the sensitiveness of functions to the inversions in the configuration bitstream and the average number of generations needed to find a target function. These findings are quite unintuitive. Once important (sensitive) bits of the reconfigurable circuit are identified, evolutionary algorithm can incorporate this knowledge. We believe that the proposed type of analysis can help those designers who develop new reconfigurable circuits for evolvable hardware applications. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.