System and method for hardware-software multitasking on a reconfigurable computing platform

摘要

A platform supporting reconfigurable computing, enabling the introduction of reconfigurable hardware into portable devices is described. Dynamic hardware/software multitasking methods for a reconfigurable computing platform including reconfigurable hardware devices such as gate arrays, especially FPGA's, and software, such as dedicated hardware/software operating systems and middleware, adapted for supporting the methods, especially multitasking, are described. A computing platform, which is a heterogeneous multi-processor platform, containing one or more instruction set processors (ISP) and a reconfigurable matrix (for instance a gate array, especially an FPGA), adapted for (dynamic) hardware/software multitasking is described.

主权项

1. A method of dynamically reconfiguring a computing platform in a process for executing at least one application on the platform, the platform comprising a reconfigurable processing device, the method comprising:
first-configuring the reconfigurable device so as to be capable of executing a first plurality of hardware tasks; after the first-configuring, executing a first set of tasks of an application substantially simultaneously on the platform, at least two of the first set of tasks being executed as hardware tasks on the reconfigurable device; interrupting the execution of the first set of tasks wherein the interruption occurs while executing a task; second-configuring the reconfigurable device such that at least one new hardware task other than one of the first plurality of hardware tasks can be executed; and executing a second set of tasks substantially simultaneously on the platform to further execute the application, wherein at least two of the second set of tasks include the at least one new hardware task and are executed as hardware tasks on the reconfigurable device, and wherein the execution of the second set of tasks includes the resumed execution of the interrupted task, wherein the application comprises a plurality of tasks, a number of the tasks being selectably executable as a software task on a programmable processor or as a hardware task on a hardware device; wherein the reconfigurable device comprises a plurality of tiles, each tile being configurable in a variety of configurations, each of the tile configurations being capable of running a hardware task and wherein the second-configuring of the reconfigurable device changes at least one of the tiles from one configuration to another configuration; and wherein the reconfigurable device comprises a communication network for providing communication between the tiles, and during the second-configuring of the reconfigurable device, the communication network remains fixed.