Hierarchical reconfigurable computing arrays for efficient CGRA-based embedded systems

ABSTRACT

Coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) based embedded system aims at achieving high system performance with sufficient flexibility to map variety of applications. However, significant area and power consumption in the arrays prohibits its competitive advantage to be used as a processing core. In this work, we propose hierarchical reconfigurable computing array architecture to reduce power/area and enhance performance in configurable embedded system. The CGRA-based embedded systems that consist of hierarchical configurable computing arrays with varying size and communication speed were examined for multimedia and other applications. Experimental results show that the proposed approach reduces on-chip area by 22%, execution time by up to 72% and reduces power consumption by up to 55% when compared with the conventional CGRA-based architectures.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.3 SPECIAL-PURPOSE AND APPLICATION-BASED SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation, Performance, Verification

Keywords:
coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA), computing hierarchy, embedded systems