A reconfigurable FPU as IP component for SoCs

Nowadays SoCs are complex systems made up of several different components that can be fit on the same die. Modem microelectronics technologies enlarge the gap between the number of devices that can be integrated on the same chip and what can be effectively designed in an ever shorter time-to-market. Moreover modern applications require high computational power at a reasonable cost in terms of area and power consumption. All these problems can be addressed using IP-reusable and reconfigurable blocks: using pre-made components makes the design and test time decrease significantly, and reconfigurability gives a high degree of flexibility and reusability to the design allowing to get this way a final product characterized by longer lifetime and lower costs. In this paper a parametric 32-bit floating-point unit described using VHDL language constructs that enable hardware configurability is presented.