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The Erlangen Slot Machine: A Dynamically Reconfigurable FPGA-based Computer

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Abstract

Computer architects have been studying the dynamically reconfigurable computer (Schaumont, Verbauwhede, Keutzer, and Sarrafzadeh, “A Quick Safari through the Reconfiguration Jungle,” in Proc. of the 38th Design Automation Conference, Las Vegas, pp. 127–177, 2001) for a number of years. New capabilities such as on-demand computing power, self-adaptiveness and self-optimization capabilities by restructuring the hardware on the fly at run-time is seen as a driving technology factor for current research initiatives such as autonomic (Kephart and Chess, Computer, 36:41–52, 2003; IBM Autonomic Computing Initiative, (http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/)) and organic computing (Müller-Schloer, von der Malsburg, and Würtz, Inform.-Spektrum, 27:332–336, 2004; The Organic Computing Page, (http://www.organic-computing.org)). Much research work is currently devoted to models for partial hardware module relocation (SPP1148 Reconfigurable Computing Priority Program, (http://www12.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/spprr/)) and dynamically reconfigurable hardware reconfiguration on e.g., FPGA-based platforms. However, there are many physical restrictions and technical problems limiting the scope or applicability of these approaches. This led us to the development of a new FPGA-based reconfigurable computer called the Erlangen Slot Machine. The architecture overcomes many architectural constraints of existing platforms and allows a user to partially reconfigure hardware modules arranged in so-called slots. The uniqueness of this computer stems from (a) a new slot-oriented hardware architecture, (b) a set of novel inter-module communication paradigms, and (c) concepts for dynamic and partial reconfiguration management.

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Notes

  1. The reconfiguration can be done only in chunks of full columns.

  2. The detailed and full instruction set syntax and syntax will be described in a forthcoming publication.

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Acknowledgments

Josef Angermeier, Jan Grembler, Felix Reimann, Thomas Haller, André Linarth, Peter Asemann, Christian Freiberger, Christoph Lauer and Dirk Koch have all helped with the design and implementation of the ESM hardware and software.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hardware-Software-Co-Design, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Am Weichselgarten 3, 91058, Erlangen, Germany

    Mateusz Majer & Jürgen Teich

  2. School of Engineering and Electronics, Mayfield Rd, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, Scotland, UK

    Ali Ahmadinia

  3. Self-Organizing Embedded Systems, University of Kaiserslautern, P.O. Box 3049, 67653, Kaiserlautern, Germany

    Christophe Bobda

Authors
  1. Mateusz Majer
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  2. Jürgen Teich
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  3. Ali Ahmadinia
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  4. Christophe Bobda
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mateusz Majer.

Additional information

Supported in part by the German Research Foundation (DFG), SPP 1148 (Rekonfigurierbare Rechensysteme) under contract TE163/14-2 and by Xilinx Inc.

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Majer, M., Teich, J., Ahmadinia, A. et al. The Erlangen Slot Machine: A Dynamically Reconfigurable FPGA-based Computer. J VLSI Sign Process Syst Sign Image Video Technol 47, 15–31 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11265-006-0017-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11265-006-0017-6

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