Improving performance and robustness of domain-specific CPLDs

Many System-on-a-Chip devices would benefit from the inclusion of reprogrammable logic on the silicon die, as it can add general computing ability, provide run-time reconfigurability, or even be used for post-fabrication modifications. Also, by tailoring the logic to the SoC domain, additional area and delay gains can be achieved over current, more general reconfigurable fabrics. This paper presents our work on creating efficient CPLD architectures for SoC, including the creation of sparse crossbars, and a novel switch smoothing algorithm which makes the crossbars amenable to layout. For our largest architecture, the switch smoothing algorithm reduced the layout's wire jog pitch from 48 to just 3, allowing for a compact VLSI layout. This has helped pave the way for our sparse-crossbar based CPLDs, which require just .37x the area and .30x the delay of our full-crossbar based CPLDs. However, regardless of how efficient an architecture we develop, it is useless if it does not have ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: FPGA
• Authors: Mark Holland, Scott Hauck
• Keywords: FPGA, FPGA 2006, Many System-on-a-Chip Devices, Sparse Crossbar, Switch Smoothing Algorithm