Placement-aware partial reconfiguration for a class of FIR-like structures

Abstract

Multi-mode systems make it possible to achieve multiple services on one platform, typically an FPGA. However, reconfiguration time and power, limit the extent to which reconfiguration can be applied. Traditionally, either complete modules have to be swapped out or they can co-exist on chip. In this work, we propose a methodology for exploring a larger reconfiguration space for a class of systems that have FIR-like structure. Furthermore, by jointly optimizing the filters we exploit parameter similarities to minimize a linear cost function of area and reconfiguration overhead. We consider the physical limitations of implementing these designs on FPGAs and propose a placement-aware approach to account for those limitations. The proposed technique minimizes the size of the reconfigurable filter and reduces the reconfiguration overhead by up to 25% in a WiMax system which is used as a case study.