Partial reconfiguration (PR) is the process of configuring a subset of resources on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) while the remainder of the device continues to operate. PR extends the usability of FPGAs and makes it possible to perform design bootstrapping. Just like bootstrapping in PCs, bootstrapping in FPGAs consists of using a small application to initialize basic services and load a larger, more complex application to the device. Bootstrapping allows for unique design applications that can be used to maintain communication services, increase design security, reduce initial configuration time, and reduce nonvolatile configuration memory storage. This thesis presents a generic bootstrap framework that can be used to construct a variety of bootstrap designs. This thesis also discusses necessary PR design rules and techniques for bootstrap design creation. Additionally, this thesis presents two applications that demonstrate the feasibility of bootstrapping. One application is a bootstrap loader featuring a PCI Express endpoint; this loader is capable of reconfiguring a subset of the hardware on an as-need basis. The other application is a prototype designed to demonstrate the bootstrapping for nonvolatile configuration memory reduction in space-bound payloads. While bootstrap design is more complex than standard FPGA designs, bootstrapping increases the flexibility and capability of FPGAs.

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The Xilinx Partial Reconfiguration tool kits have been instrumental for performing a wide variety of research on Xilinx FPGAs. These tool kits provide a methodology for creating rectangular partial reconfiguration modules that can be swapped in and out of a static baseline design with one or more PR slots. This thesis presents a new PR toolkit called OpenPR that, for starters, provides similar functionality to the Xilinx PR tool kits. The distinguishing feature of this toolkit is that it is being released as open source, and is intended to be customizable to the needs of researchers. OpenPR has been designed to be easy to use, extensible, portable, and compatible with a wide range of Xilinx software and devices. Aside from supporting the slot-based PR paradigm, OpenPR also provides a solid base for further research into partial reconfiguration and FPGA productivity oriented design tools. / Master of Science

There is currently a strong trend towards embedding Internet capabilities into electronics and everyday appliances. Most network controllers used in small appliances or for specialized purposes are built using micro controllers. However there are many applications where a hardware-oriented approach using Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) or Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is more suitable. One of the features of FPGAs that cannot be integrated into ASICs is runtime reconfiguration in which, certain portions of the chip are reconfigured at runtime while the other parts continue to operate normally. This feature is required for network controllers with multiple data transfer channels that need to preserve the state of the static channels while reconfiguration is taking place. It is also required for controllers with space constraints in terms of FPGA resources or time constraints in terms of reconfiguration times. This thesis explores the impact of partial reconfiguration on the performance of a network controller. An FPGA-based network controller that supports partial reconfiguration has been designed and constructed. Partial bitstreams that can configure certain channels of the network controller without a ecting the functioning of others have been created. Experiments have been performed that quantify the manner in which, the performance of the controller can be changed by loading these partial bitstreams onto the FPGA. These experiments demonstrated the advantages of using partial reconfiguration to change network-related parameters at runtime to optimize performance of the network controller. / Master of Science

Wireless communication serves as the foundation for a wide range of services that have become an integral part of human life in this day and age. Driven by the desire to have a single piece of hardware that can provide multiple wireless services, attention has been directed to SDRs due to their programmable nature and the flexibility they can offer in operating over multiple standards. In addition, they can provide effective solutions to current challenges in wireless communication, such as spectrum overcrowding and inter-standard operability, as well as future challenges to come due to their upgradeability. Although SDRs have been around in the research community for over a decade, they have not reached the point of transitioning to the mass consumer market, size being one of the major obstacles. Numerous SDR hardware platforms have been developed demonstrating successful functionality, yet to this day most of them remain trapped in desktop/benchtop form factors which are not suited for mobility. A main factor contributing to the size of SDR units is the RF front end. Using current technology, wide-band operation of SDR RF front-ends is achieved by aggregating multiple dedicated components, each covering a portion of the frequency range. Recent technology advances have enabled the integration of wide frequency functionality inside a single integrated package. One example is a prototype RFIC transceiver chip from Motorola Research Labs which contains a complete direct conversion RF transceiver in a single chip, with a frequency coverage range of 100MHz-2.4GHz. RFIC5, the latest version of the chip, has additionally integrated high speed ADC and DAC units, leading to a significant reduction in the component count and the overall size of the SDR hardware. This thesis describes the implementation of a highly compact, SDR PC plug-in card, known as PicoRF. PicoRF is based on the Motorola's RFIC chip for the RF front-end functionality, while the combined computational power of a V5 FPGA and a PC host is used for waveform signal processing. An overlay gird consisting of an interconnection of PR slots is reserved on the FPGA to host the components of a signal processing pipeline which can be modified during run-time. Through a high speed PCIe connection, partial bitstreams can be downloaded from the host PC to the FPGA at a very high speed making it possible for the radio to modify its function in very short time intervals and greatly reducing the service interruption time. Control software running on the PC host manages the overall system operation including the RFIC which is controlled through a custom developed API. The combination of the laptop host and the plug-in card form a small form factor, mobile SDR node that is one step towards satisfying both the performance and ergonomics demand of the consumer market. / Master of Science

Partial reconfiguration is a unique capability provided by several Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) vendors recently, which involves altering part of the programmed design within an SRAM-based FPGA at run-time. In this dissertation, a Multilayer Runtime Reconfiguration Architecture (MRRA) is developed, evaluated, and refined for Autonomous Runtime Partial Reconfiguration of FPGA devices. Under the proposed MRRA paradigm, FPGA configurations can be manipulated at runtime using on-chip resources. Operations are partitioned into Logic, Translation, and Reconfiguration layers along with a standardized set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). At each level, resource details are encapsulated and managed for efficiency and portability during operation. An MRRA mapping theory is developed to link the general logic function and area allocation information to the device related physical configuration level data by using mathematical data structure and physical constraints. In certain scenarios, configuration bit stream data can be read and modified directly for fast operations, relying on the use of similar logic functions and common interconnection resources for communication. A corresponding logic control flow is also developed to make the entire process autonomous. Several prototype MRRA systems are developed on a Xilinx Virtex II Pro platform. The Virtex II Pro on-chip PowerPC core and block RAM are employed to manage control operations while multiple physical interfaces establish and supplement autonomous reconfiguration capabilities. Area, speed and power optimization techniques are developed based on the developed Xilinx prototype. Evaluations and analysis of these prototype and techniques are performed on a number of benchmark and hashing algorithm case studies. The results indicate that based on a variety of test benches, up to 70% reduction in the resource utilization, up to 50% improvement in power consumption, and up to 10 times increase in run-time performance are achieved using the developed architecture and approaches compared with Xilinx baseline reconfiguration flow. Finally, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) for a FPGA fault tolerance case study is evaluated as a ultimate high-level application running on this architecture. It demonstrated that this is a hardware and software infrastructure that enables an FPGA to dynamically reconfigure itself efficiently under the control of a soft microprocessor core that is instantiated within the FPGA fabric. Such a system contributes to the observed benefits of intelligent control, fast reconfiguration, and low overhead.

Este trabalho descreve a prova de conceito de uma abordagem que utiliza o modelo de computação a fluxo de dados, inerentemente paralelo, associado ao modelo de computação reconfigurável parcial e dinamicamente, visando à obtenção de sistemas computacionais de alto desempenho. Mais especificamente, trata da obtenção de um modelo para o particionamento dos grafos a fluxo de dados dinâmicos e de um protocolo de comunicação entre suas partes, a fim de permitir a sua implementação em arquiteturas dinamicamente reconfiguráveis, em especial em FGPAs Virtex da Xilinx. Enquadra-se no contexto do projeto ChipCFlow, de escopo mais amplo, que pretende obter uma ferramenta para geração automática de descrição de hardware sintetizável, a partir de código em alto nível, escrito em linguagem C, fazendo uso da abordagem a fluxo de dados para extrair o paralelismo implícito nas aplicações originais. O modelo proposto é aplicado em um grafo a fluxo de dados dinâmico, e através de simulações sua viabilidade é discutida / This work describes the concept of an approach that uses data ow computational model, inherently parallel, associated with de reconfigurable computing model, partial and dynamic, in order to obtain high performance computational systems. More specifically, it is about a model to the partitioning and communication between partitioned sectors of a CDFG (Control Data Flow Graph) in order to map these graphs on a partial reconfiguration FPGA fabric, in special Virtex II/II-Pro from Xilinx. It is part of the ChipCFlow project, that has a bigger scope, and that aims to automatically obtain syntetisable hardware descriptions, from high level code written in C and, by using a data flow approach to extract implicit parallelism in original applications. The model obtained is extensively explained and applied to an example of CDFG, where by means of simulations its feasibility is discussed

Due to their programmable nature, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) offer a good test environment for reconfigurable systems. FPGAs can be reconfigured during the operation with changing demands. This feature, known as Runtime Reconfiguration (RTR), can be used to speed-up computations and reduce system cost. Moreover, it can be used in a wide range of applications such as adaptable hardware, fault tolerant architectures. This thesis is mostly concentrated on the runtime reconfigurable architectures. Critical properties of runtime reconfigurable architectures are examined. As a case study, a Triple Modular Redundant (TMR) system has been implemented on a runtime reconfigurable FPGA. The runtime reconfigurable structure increases the system reliability against faults. Especially, the weakness of SRAM based FPGAs against Single Event Upsets (SEUs) is eliminated by the designed system. Besides, the system can replace faulty elements with non-faulty elements during the operation. These features of the developed architecture provide extra safety to the system also prolong the life of the FPGA device without interrupting the whole system.

Este trabalho descreve a prova de conceito de uma abordagem que utiliza o modelo de computação a fluxo de dados, inerentemente paralelo, associado ao modelo de computação reconfigurável parcial e dinamicamente, visando à obtenção de sistemas computacionais de alto desempenho. Mais especificamente, trata da obtenção de um modelo para o particionamento dos grafos a fluxo de dados dinâmicos e de um protocolo de comunicação entre suas partes, a fim de permitir a sua implementação em arquiteturas dinamicamente reconfiguráveis, em especial em FGPAs Virtex da Xilinx. Enquadra-se no contexto do projeto ChipCFlow, de escopo mais amplo, que pretende obter uma ferramenta para geração automática de descrição de hardware sintetizável, a partir de código em alto nível, escrito em linguagem C, fazendo uso da abordagem a fluxo de dados para extrair o paralelismo implícito nas aplicações originais. O modelo proposto é aplicado em um grafo a fluxo de dados dinâmico, e através de simulações sua viabilidade é discutida / This work describes the concept of an approach that uses data ow computational model, inherently parallel, associated with de reconfigurable computing model, partial and dynamic, in order to obtain high performance computational systems. More specifically, it is about a model to the partitioning and communication between partitioned sectors of a CDFG (Control Data Flow Graph) in order to map these graphs on a partial reconfiguration FPGA fabric, in special Virtex II/II-Pro from Xilinx. It is part of the ChipCFlow project, that has a bigger scope, and that aims to automatically obtain syntetisable hardware descriptions, from high level code written in C and, by using a data flow approach to extract implicit parallelism in original applications. The model obtained is extensively explained and applied to an example of CDFG, where by means of simulations its feasibility is discussed

In recent years, reconfigurable devices are developing fast because of its flexibility and less development cost. But intrinsic shortcomings of reconfigurable devices, for example, high power, low speed, etc. induce difficulties in complex designs realizations. So people began to consider combination of ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) and reconfigurable device on a single chip, which is SOPC (System on Programmable Chip). SOPC can not only decrease development risk and timing to market, but also be used in different applications, especially of products that keep varying, for example, communication and network products. Dynamically reconfiguration means reconfigurable device of the chip can be reconfigured repeatable, and performs different functions at different times. Compared with static reconfiguration, dynamic reconfiguration can use the reconfigurable device more thoroughly. It‟s a hot spot of research in the world, especially in reconfigurable computing. This paper mainly concludes my research work in reconfigurable SOPC in 3 major parts: hardware, software and application. The following works and innovations are completed: 1. SOPC hardware system architecture design and discussion. Helps to define the system architecture and design goals. The design of EBI controller which is used in the SOPC. The integration of the blocks in the system. 2. The building-up of the SOPC system-level verification and block-level verification environment. The set-up of the hardware-software co-simulation environment. The post-layout simulation and formal verification tasks. We propose an innovative automated regression system. The system helps to achieve the same simulation coverage (95%) and the total simulation time is reduced by approximately 30%. 3. SOPC software design, including the OS kernel porting, drivers design and application design. The design of the PowerPC initialization program and UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter), reconfiguring communication driver programs. Writing the test-cases which are specialized for the system verification and hardware testing. 4. Being the co-designer of the novel bus macro based on the FDP reconfigurable logic core. And we realize the whole reconfigurable system based on this bus macro. 5. The reconfigurable application research based on Reconfigurable Logic Core. The reconfigurable image filter designed implemented on FDP300K Reconfigurable Logic Core device. Using self-design Reconfigurable Logic Core internal bus macro to implement the partial reconfigurable system. The test results showed that the reconfigurable filter has the feature of fast configuration speed and good output image quality.