A Dynamically Adaptive Hardware on Dynamically Reconfigurable Processor

A framework of dynamically adaptive hardware mechanism on multicontext reconfigurable devices is proposed, and as an example, an adaptive switching fabric is implemented on NEC's novel reconfigurable device DRP (Dynamically Reconfigurable Processor). In this switch, contexts for the full crossbar and alternative hadware modules, which provide larger band-width but can treat only a limited pattern of packet inputs, are prepared. Using the quick context switching functionality, a context for the full crossbar is replaced by alternative contexts according to the packet inputs pattern. If the context corresponding to requested alternative hadware modules is not inside the chip, it is loaded from outside chip to currently unused context memory, then replaced with the full size crossbar. If the traffic includes a lot of packets for specific destinations, a set of contexts frequently used in the traffic is gathered inside the chip like a working set stored in a cache. 4 × 4 mesh network connected with the proposed adaptive switches is simulated, and it appears that the latency between nodes is improved three times when the traffic between neighboring four nodes is dominant.