Improving Functional Density Through Run-Time Constant Propagation

Circuit specialization techniques such as constant propagation are commonly used to reduce both the hardware resources and cycle time of digital circuits. When recon gurable FPGAs are used, these advantages can be extended by dynamically specializing circuits using run-time recon guration RTR. For systems exploiting constant propagation, hardware resources can be reduced by folding constants within the circuit and dynamically changing the constants using circuit recon guration. To measure the bene ts of circuit specialization, a functional density metric is presented. This metric allows the analysis of both static and run-time recongured circuits by including the cost of circuit reconguration. This metric will be used to justify runtime constant propagation as well as analyze the effects of recon guration time on run-time recon gured systems.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: FPGA
• Authors: Michael J. Wirthlin, Brad L. Hutchings
• Keywords: Constant Propagation, FPGA, FPGA 1997, Recon Guration, Run-time Recon