ReCoBus-Builder — A novel tool and technique to build statically and dynamically reconfigurable systems for FPGAS

Abstract

In this paper, we present the ReCoBus-builder tool chain that simplifies the generation of dynamically reconfigurable systems to almost a push-button process. The generated systems provide one or more resource areas that will be used by different partially reconfigurable modules at runtime. It is possible to integrate multiple partially reconfigurable modules into the same resource area at the same time and these modules can communicate via a fixed bus infrastructure or dedicated point-to-point links with other parts of the system. This allows building encapsulated modules that will be integrated into the system by linking together bitstreams at runtime. We will demonstrate that bitstream linking can further be used to speed up the design process of static only systems by eliminating long synthesis runs or place and route steps, when only small portions of a design are exchanged.