Etissue: A bio-inspired match-based reconfigurable hardware architecture supporting hierarchical self-healing and self-evolution

This paper presents the concept of a match-based biological inspired reconfigurable hardware architecture named electronic tissue (eTissue), which supports hierarchical self-healing and self-evolution. In existing multicellular array architecture, data and cells are tightly-coupled, that is, each data can be processed only by a certain cell. In eTissue, we imitate the match-based recognition mechanism in protein sorting to loosely couple data and cells, i.e., each data can be recognized and processed by any homogeneous cell. This loosely-coupled relationship makes the replacement of cells more flexible, equipping eTissue with more powerful self-healing and self-evolution capabilities. Substitution among homogeneous cells, differentiation of adult stem cells, and conversion between heterogeneous cells endow eTissue with the capability of hierarchical self-healing. The self-evolution of eTissue is derived from differentiation of adult stem cells and conversion between heterogeneous cells. Our fault-injection experiments show that eTissue has promising self-healing and self-evolution capabilities.