Incremental reconfiguration for pipelined applications

This paper examines the implementation of pipelined applications using run-time reconfiguration. Throughput and latency of pipelined applications can be significantly improved when reconfiguration is performed at the level of individual pipeline stages, as opposed to configuration of the entire FPGA. If reconfiguration and execution can be performed simultaneously, the performance of a pipelined application approaches its theoretical maximum. This paper proposes a new FPGA configuration mechanism, called striping, that supports pipeline stage reconfiguration and simultaneous configuration and execution. Additionally, the use of the pipeline stage as the atomic unit of reconfiguration introduces a design abstraction that enables the development families of upwardly-compatible FPGAs and virtual hardware design.