Optimization of reconfiguration transitions for (self-)reconfigurable FSM using decomposition

(Self-)reconfigurable finite state machine (FSM) had been introduced as a formal model to implement the sequential circuit which can be reconfigured during the operation. The reconfiguration is initiated by the external events or by the controller that generates the reconfiguration transitions. In this paper, we optimize the number of reconfiguration transitions required to reconfigure a given FSM into a new target FSM. A serious limitation of previously proposed techniques is that they depend on the number of essential transitions which are the different transitions between a given and a target FSMs. In this paper, we propose a new technique based on FSM decomposition to decompose a given and target FSMs into two sub machines. A part of essential transitions is implemented as a single decomposed submachine with the same functionality in two decomposed FSMs. This submachine is inactive and has no effect in the normal operation but reduces the number of essential transitions during the reconfiguration. We give a decomposition strategy, realize the proper hardware, and provide a set of experimental results that shows the reconfiguration transitions can be substantially reduced, in some cases up to 54%