Caronte: a complete methodology for the implementation of partially dynamically self-reconfiguring systems on FPGA platforms

It is common nowadays to employ FPGAS, not only as a means of rapidly prototyping and testing dedicated solutions, but also as a platform on which to implement actual production systems. Although modern FPGAS allow the designer to modify dynamically even only portions of the chip, to this date there is a lack of satisfying design methodologies that using only non-proprietary widely available tools make it possible to optimally implement a high-level specification into a partially dynamically reconfigurable system. The aim of this work is to propose a methodology for solving this problem. The main features of the Caronte methodology are: 1. full exploitation of partial dynamic reconfiguration; 2. the reconfiguration is internal; 3. a real-time Unix-like operating system helps the management of complex systems with multiple tasks, and simplifies reconfiguration through an optimized device driver.