Section: New Results

A custom reconfiguration controller for partial and dynamic reconfiguration in HoMade based systems

In all Xilinx devices supporting dynamic reconfiguration, such a functionality is realized using a hardware reconfiguration port called ICAP, that moves bitstreams from the reconfiguration memory to the programmable logic. ICAP is initialized by a Xilinx HW controller driven exclusively by a Microblaze processor and thus connected to a PLB or AXI bus.

This makes the partial and dynamic reconfiguration a very tedious task, as it implies using several Xilinx tools (XPS, ISE, PlanAhead,..etc). PDR becomes also resources and time consuming due to the fact that it uses very large interfaces and a static Xilinx architecture (in addition to the system that we want to design) including specific processors, buses, controllers,..etc.

Our contribution is the design of a custom ICAP controller, driven only by a HoMade processor, without any additional processors, buses or controllers. This ensures that our HoMade reconfigurable systems consumes fewer resources on the FPGA and does not require other tools than the standard ISE and PlanAhead tools in order to be designed.