Exploring dynamically reconfigurable multicore designs with NoRC designer

This paper presents a toolset named NoRC (Network on a Reconfigurable Chip) designer and IP infrastructure designed to investigate the effects of partial dynamic reconfiguration in multicore designs mapped to commercial FPGAs. Dynamic reconfiguration means in this context that tiles and communication routers can be modified at run-time adapting to changes in application requirements, operating conditions and/or process variations. The NoRC system is oriented at avoiding any centralized control with functions mapped to tiles at runtime depending on processing capabilities and location. The dynamic nature of the platform means that following a request for an application from an external host any idle tile can be configured as a master able to make additional requests to nearby tiles or as a slave able to service the requests. NoRC designer is used in this paper to investigate possible task mapping strategies suitable for this type of adaptive platform and also the power and partial reconfiguration overheads of commercial FPGAs.