Run-time parameterised circuits for the Xilinx XC6200

Abstract

Current design tools support parameterisation of circuits, but the parameters are fixed at compile-time. In contrast, the circuits discussed in this paper fix their parameters at run-time. Run-time parameterised circuits can potentially out-perform custom VLSI hardware by optimising the FPGA circuit for a specific instance of a problem rather than for a general class of problem. This paper discusses the design of run-time parameterised circuits, and presents a study of run-time parameterised circuits for finite field operations on the Xilinx XC6200. The paper includes a comparison with implementation on a self-timed version of the XC6200 architecture, which illustrates the potential benefits of self-timing for dynamically reconfigurable systems.