Reducing power for dynamically reconfigurable processor array by reducing number of reconfigurations

A power-consumption-centric assignment algorithm called partially fixed configuration mapping (PFCM) is proposed for multi-context dynamically reconfigurable processors. By assigning the same operations into the same PE (processing element) as many as possible, the amount of changing configuration data for dynamic reconfiguration can be reduced, resulting in the redundant power consumed for changing the configuration also being reduced. The proposed algorithm was implemented in a compiler for a dynamically reconfigurable processor for research. Evaluation results showed that the consumed power was reduced by 10% on average without increasing the execution time.