Architectural tradeoffs in field-programmable-device-based computing systems

Reprogrammable Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have enabled the realization of high-performance and affordable reconfigurable computing engines. The authors examine the architectural tradeoffs involved in designing general purpose FPGA-based computing systems with field-programmable gate arrays and field-programmable interconnects. The fact that FPGAs provide both programmable logic and programmable interconnects raises numerous design issues that need to be considered with care. Factors that influence the tradeoffs are routability, rearrangeability and speed.<>