Optimal reconfiguration sequence management [FPGA runtime reconfiguration]

In this paper, we present an efficient optimal algorithm for minimizing the runtime reconfiguration (context switching) delay of executing an application on a reconfigurable system. We assume that the basic operations of the application are already scheduled and each of them has to be realized on the reconfigurable fabric in order to be executed. The modeling and algorithm are both applicable to partially reconfigurable platforms as well as multi-FPGA systems. The algorithm can be directly applied to minimize the application runtime for many typical classes of applications, where the actual execution delay of basic operations is negligible compared to the reconfiguration delay. We prove the optimality and efficiency of our algorithm and report experimental results, which demonstrate 40% to 2.5% improvement in total runtime reconfiguration delay.