Runtime reconfigurable interfaces - the RTR-IFB approach

Summary form only given. Reconfigurable architectures have become more and more popular due to technology improvements. Next to the implementation of complex applications, the inter-module communication becomes a critical aspect in reconfigurable architectures. Especially, dependencies between reconfigured computation modules in real-time environments lead to massive reconfiguration efforts. The approach delivered presents runtime reconfigurable interface blocks (RTR-IFB) which can be used to solve those dependencies. The switching of modules during runtime, synchronization and inter-module communication is handled. As one effect, reconfigured modules can share the same execution resources without having a reconfiguration based communication gap. The RTR-IFB methodology extends actual concepts for inter-module communication. A design flow specifies how RTR-IFBs are integrated in the partial reconfiguration design flow. An example shows how an RTR-IFB can be integrated into a realistic design.