OpenPR: An Open-Source Partial-Reconfiguration Toolkit for Xilinx FPGAs

The Xilinx Partial Reconfiguration Early Access Software Tools for ISE 9.2i has been an instrumental package for performing a wide variety of research on Xilinx FPGAs, and is now superseded with the corresponding non-free add-on for ISE 12.3. The original package was developed and offered by Xilinx as a downloadable add-on package to the Xilinx ISE 9.2 tools. The 9.2i toolkit provided a methodology for creating rectangular partial reconfiguration modules that could be swapped in and out of a static baseline design with one or more PR slots. This paper presents a new PR toolkit called Open PR that, for starters, provides similar functionality as the Xilinx PR Toolkit, yet is extendable to explore other modes of partial reconfiguration. The distinguishing feature of this toolkit is that it is being released as open source, and is intended to extend to the needs of individual researchers.