Distributed Collaborative Partition Method of Reconfigurable SoC Using Ant Colony Optimization

The flexibility, performance and cost effectiveness of reconfigurable architectures have lead to its widespread use for embedded applications. Reconfigurable SoC (system-on-a-chip) design is very complex for multi-fields experts to collaborate on application algorithm design, hardware/software co-design and system decision. However, existing reconfigurable SoC design methods and environments can only support hardware/software co-design, ignoring the collaboration between multi-field experts. This paper presents a distributed collaborative partition method of reconfigurable system design using ant colony optimization. We create a distributed collaborative design environment for multi-field experts. The communication protocol, maintenance of consistency and parallel control are discussed. The method not only utilizes the advantages of ant colony optimization for searching the global best optimized solutions, but also provides a framework for multi-field experts to work collaboratively. Experimental results show that our method effectively improves the quality and efficiency of hardware/software partition for reconfigurable system design.