A Partitioning Methodology That Optimises the Area on Reconfigurable Real-Time Embedded Systems

We provide a methodology used for the temporal partitioning of the data-path part of an algorithm for a reconfigurable embedded system. Temporal partitioning of applications for reconfigurable computing systems is a very active research field and some methods and tools have already been proposed. But all these methodologies target the domain of existing reconfigurable accelerators or reconfigurable processors. In this case, the number of cells in the reconfigurable array is an implementation constraint and the goal of an optimised partitioning is to minimise the processing time and/or the memory bandwidth requirement. Here, we present a strategy for partitioning and optimising designs. The originality of our method is that we use the dynamic reconfiguration in order to minimise the number of cells needed to implement the data path of an application under a time constraint. This approach can be useful for the design of an embedded system. Our approach is illustrated by a reconfigurable implementation of a real-time image processing data path.