Highly flexible multi-mode system synthesis

Multi-mode systems have emerged as an area- and power-efficient approach to implementing multiple time-wise mutually exclusive algorithms and applications in a single hardware space. These systems have limited flexibility and temporal separation between modes is achieved by changing only the dataflow between components. This paper presents a synthesis methodology for integrating flexible components and controllers into primarily fixed logic multi-mode systems thereby increasing their overall flexibility and efficiency. The components are built using a technique called small-scale reconfigurability that provides the necessary flexibility without the penalties associated with general-purpose reconfigurable logic. The reconfiguration latency is small enabling both inter-mode and intra-mode reconfiguration of components. Datapath and controller area and power consumption are reduced beyond what is provided in current multi-mode systems using this methodology, without sacrificing performance. The results show an average 7% reduction in datapath component area, 26% reduction in register area, 36% reduction in interconnect MUX cost, and a 68% reduction in the number of controller signals for a set of benchmark 32-bit signal processing applications. There is also an average 38% increase in component utilization.