D&R Industry Articles (August 2012)

Featured Article

Proposal of a Dynamically Reconfigurable Processor Architecture with Multi-Accelerator

In this paper, we propose a dynamically reconfigurable processor architecture with a multi-accelerator using Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration (DPR) technology by XILINX. The proposed architecture consists of a processor, some memories, some buses, controllers and some dynamically reconfigurable accelerators. We employ a multi-bus system and design the controllers for a dynamically reconfiguration. A JPEG encoder and decoder that are open-source IPs are used as target applications. The proposed architecture is implemented on a Virtex-6 FPGA and evaluated regarding the circuit size and reconfiguration time. The results showed that the partial reconfiguration time was small enough.

Featured Article

Co-Designed Cache Coherency Architecture for Embedded Multicore Systems

In this paper, we present the round-robin method applied to baseline coherency protocol and initial analysis of one hybrid protocol that performs speculative requests when access patterns are detected. We also propose to manage patterns through a dedicated hardware component attached to each core of the processor.

Featured Article

Designing a robust clock tree structure

This article describes the factors which a designer should consider while defining clock tree architecture. It presents some real design examples that illustrate how current EDA tools or conventional methodologies to design clock trees are not sufficient in all cases. A designer has to understanding the nitty -gritty of clock tree architecture to be able to guide an EDA tool to build a more efficient clock tree. First, the basics of CTS and requirements for good clock tree are presented.