Partitioning methodology for dynamically reconfigurable embedded systems

Hardware-software partitioning is a crucial step in the design of embedded reconfigurable systems. Typically the objective is to optimise the speed performance of the application while minimising cost. Recently, FPGAs are being employed in embedded systems to increase the computational power of the system by customising the reconfigurable platform to the hardware partition´s requirements. A new method for hardware-software partitioning is presented, which considers partitioning applications within resource-limited embedded systems that utilise the runtime reconfiguration capabilities of FPGAs. The partitioning approach is demonstrated using example speech and image processing applications