Non-orthogonal decoding: An architectural element for reprogrammable interconnect or logic

Abstract

A reprogrammable logic or interconnect architecture termed non-orthogonal decoding is described, which increases routability with no additional circuitry and negligible added layout area, compared to an existing reprogrammable routing architecture, the orthogonal decoding architecture introduced by Aptix. An orthogonal decoding architecture's routing channel box is modified to illustrate non-orthogonal decoding. The former is shown to be replaceable, without restrictions, by non-orthogonal decoding, which is also shown to increase routability. A generalization of the 2-d decoding space to higher dimensions and the application of non-orthogonal decoding to FPGAs are discussed.