Re­con­fig­ur­able Com­put­ing (2V, 1U)

This course will be given in English.

Subject and Goal

Classically, computers consist of software and hardware. The hardware is fixed when the computer is manufactured and the software is loaded and removed when the computer is in field usage. Reconfigurable computing structures change this classical view of computer systems. Computers built from reconfigurable structures do not rely on a fixed hardware, but adapt their architecture to the application under execution. Making hardware soft is considered to lead to a paradigm shift in computing and is expected to radically change the way we construct and use computing systems.

The field of reconfigurable computing was formed in the early 1990s when reprogrammable hardware devices became commercially available that were powerful enough to be used for computing. The scientific community in reconfigurable computing has its roots in Microelectronics and Computer Science, but was later joined by researchers from application areas with extraordinarily high computing demands such as Combinatorial Optimization, Computational Biology and Physics. In the meantime, reconfigurable systems have outperformed state-of-the-art computers for many problems including database search, genomic sequence scanning, and cryptography. In embedded systems, reconfigurable technology accelerates system functions, reduces system cost and power consumption, and enables hardware-on-demand functionality.

This course introduces to this new field of Reconfigurable Computing. The first part of the course focuses on architectures and computer-aided design methods for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are commercially highly successful devices for implementing reconfigurable computing systems. The second part of the course covers more research-oriented topics such as runtime reconfiguration, coarse-grained reconfigurable devices, compilation from high-level languages or operating systems for reconfigurable computers.

Contents

The course will try to cover the following list of topics:

  • Introduction & Motivation
  • Reconfigurable Devices
  • Reconfigurable Systems
  • Computer-Aided Design for FPGAs
  • Compilation from High-level Languages
  • System-level Design Methods
  • Application Domains and Examples

Dates and Times, Materials

The lecture is held on Tuesday, 11:00-12:30 in room D2, starting with October 20, 2015. Exercises are integrated into the lecture, lab sessions will be organized during the semester. 

The course materials are available via the following koaLA course.

Further information: