Academic literature on the topic 'Coarse Grained Reconfigurable arrays'

Shift transformations are the fundamental operation of cryptographic algorithms, and the arithmetic unit implementing different types of shift transformations are utilized in the coarse-grain reconfigurable cryptographic architectures (CGRCA) to meet the different cryptographic algorithms. In this paper, a reconfigurable shift transformation unit (RSTU) is proposed to meet the complicated shift requirement of CGRCA, which achieves high flexibility and a good cost–performance ratio. The mathematical properties of shift transformation are analyzed, and several theorems are introduced to design a reconfigurable shifter. Furthermore, the reconfigurable data path of the proposed unit is presented to implement the random combination of shift operations in different granularity, and configuration word and routing algorithms are proposed to generate control information for RSTU. Moreover, the control information generation module is designed to invert the configuration word into the control information, according to the routing algorithms. As a proof-of-concept, the proposed RSTU is built using the CMOS 65 nm technology. The experimental results show that RSTU supports more shift operations, increases 18.2% speed at most, and reduces 13% area occupation, compared to the existing shifters.

Reconfigurable computing architectures allow the adaptation of the underlying datapath to the algorithm. The granularity of the datapath elements and data width determines the granularity of the architecture and its programming flexibility. Coarse-grained architectures have shown the right balance between programmability and performance. This paper provides an overview of coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures and describes Versat, a Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array (CGRA) with self-generated partial reconfiguration, presented as a case study for better understanding these architectures. Unlike most of the existing approaches, which mainly use pre-compiled configurations, a Versat program can generate and apply myriads of on-the-fly configurations. Partial reconfiguration plays a central role in this approach, as it speeds up the generation of incrementally different configurations. The reconfigurable array has a complete graph topology, which yields unprecedented programmability, including assembly programming. Besides being useful for optimising programs, assembly programming is invaluable for working around post-silicon hardware, software, or compiler issues. Results on core area, frequency, power, and performance running different codes are presented and compared to other implementations.