Dynamic reconfiguration with hardwired networks-on-chip on future FPGAs

Due to their layered approach, networks-on-chip (NoC) are a promising communication backbone in the field of heterogeneous dynamically reconfigurable systems. In this paper a future FPGA architecture is discussed having a hardwired NoC as an additional high-level routing resource. Instead of implementing on-chip interconnection with valuable reconfigurable resources, on top of this architecture, cost-efficient statically and dynamically reconfigurable systems can be built. The concept of such an FPGA is explored by means of an abstract SystemC model. This model not only implements the NoC but also permits a tile based dynamic reconfiguration. It is shown, that this approach advances the research on operating system support for dynamic reconfiguration in a new way.