Self-reconfiguration is a technique using which configured logic can quickly modify itself at runtime to suit application requirements. Although performance improvements using self-reconfiguration have been demonstrated, the technique itself has been only informally described. Based on an abstract re-configurable device model, a precise definition of self-reconfiguration is presented in this paper. Various practical issues in efficiently implementing self-reconfiguration are also discussed. A competing approach to self-reconfiguration is the use of a von Neumann processor on the same chip as the reconfigurable logic. Both alternatives can provide on-chip configuration modification. The performance of both alternatives is evaluated for a frequently used configuration modification operation. The approaches used for both alternatives are described and the performance of both approaches is evaluated. Self-reconfiguration is found to require significantly lesser area as well as significantly lesser time compared to the attached processor approach.
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