A Concept for an Evaluation Framework for Reconfigurable Systems

The design of reconngurable systems is a hard task due to a huge amount of optimization trade-oos and constraints. Deeciencies at the higher level of conceptual decisions may result in critical bottlenecks of the system implementation. This paper explores the design space and performance evaluation criteria of reconngurable systems and introduces a concept for an evaluation framework based on these explorations helping to avoid such deeciencies. 1 Motivation The developments in reconngurable logic over the last decade result in fascinating achievements both in device architecture and software environment. High-density million-gates devices, partially reconngurable logic and multiple-context FPGAs raise new challenges to system developers and researchers. The success of a particular project always depends on the experience and skills of the design team which has to nd a suitable solution driven by optimization trade-oos and design space constraints. This process usually results in the time-consuming development of dedicated simulation and prototyping environments, especially if the design of a novel architecture is considered. A general purpose framework which allows systematical exploration of the design space supported by the performance evaluation steps may reduce the complexity of this problem. The following sections describe the models required to develop such a framework as well as a rst conceptual approach. The modelling of the design space is the most important task while developing a computing system. A suitable model helps to classify the existing approaches and shows niches for novel architectures and paradigms. The analysis of the known classiication schemes like 4-and 3-class-model 1, 2] or RP-space 3] and Olymp taxonomy 4] draws some basic parameters of the design space. A review of the newest logic devices and CCM implementations helps to establish a more