ITR: Reconfigurable Fabric

正如摩尔定律所预测的那样，由于硅基电子技术的无情发展，计算、存储和通信现在已经融入了我们的生活。新兴的柔性电子技术，其中晶体管和电线等电子元件建立在一种薄的柔性材料上，提供了类似的机会，将计算、存储和通信编织到我们穿的衣服的面料中。无缝集成大量与传感器和执行器相匹配的通信计算和存储资源，在接近人体的地方，将改变生物医学研究和实践的许多方面。例如，人们可以想象生物医学应用，将生物识别和环境传感器编织到患者或处于医学关键或危险环境中的人的衣服中，以触发或调节药物的输送。要在实验室外实现这一愿景，需要在系统级信息技术领域进行根本性创新。如果简单地将这些系统视为基于不同、灵活外形的传统芯片或主板，它们将无法扩展到广泛使用。相反，需要重新考虑这些系统的所有层的体系结构和设计方法。原因有两个。首先，柔性材料中的电子基础技术具有与基于硅和印刷电路板的电子技术非常不同的特性和计算-通信成本权衡。其次，这些系统的自然应用具有与传统系统非常不同的环境动态、物理耦合、资源约束、基础设施支持和健壮性要求。为这些系统开发所需的信息技术架构和设计方法所面临的挑战之一是，既需要进行实验工作，又需要对问题领域进行概念性的理解。本研究研究：应用：作为驱动应用能力，基于(I)使用有机材料的柔性电子技术，以及(Ii)以电子按钮实现的计算、通信和传感元件的组合的可重构织物(R-Fabric)。架构：开发一般架构概念和成本/性能优化技术。我们将关注的问题将包括(I)用于构成体系结构的适当原语，(Ii)针对有机电子的电特性优化的系统互连网络，(Iii)应对通信与计算成本的高比率的技术，以及(Iv)体系结构级别的自配置和重新配置以实现健壮操作。编程：开发用于对由数百个计算、存储、传感和执行元件组成的系统进行编程的技术和原语，这些元件分别受资源限制，并通过结构化但容易出错的高成本互连网络连接。处理器：开发针对这些功率受限、物理耦合应用程序进行优化的领域特定处理器架构。设计方法：开发技术和混合仿真平台，用于系统架构探索、模拟、优化和重新配置这些系统。

Because of the relentless march of the silicon-based electronics technology as predicted by Moore's Law, computation, storage, and communication are now woven into the fabrics of our lives. The emerging technology of flexible electronics, where electronics components such as transistors and wires are built on a thin flexible material, offers a similar opportunity to weave computation, storage, and communication into the fabric of the very clothing that we wear. The implications of seamlessly integrating a large number of communicating computation and storage resources, mated with sensors and actuators, in close proximity to the human body will transform many aspects of biomedical research and practice. For example, one can imagine biomedical applications where biometric and ambient sensors are woven into the garment of a patient or a person in a medically-critical or hazardous environment to trigger or modulate the delivery of a drug.To realize this vision outside the laboratory, radical innovation is required in the area of system-level information technology. These systems will not scale to widespread use if they are viewed simply as traditional chips or motherboards based on a different, flexible form factor. Rather, a rethinking of the architecture and the design methodology for all layers of these systems is needed. The reasons are two-fold. First, the underlying technology of electronics in flexible materials has characteristics and computation-communication cost trade-offs that are very different from that of silicon and PCB-based electronics. Second, the natural applications of these systems have environmental dynamics, physical coupling, resource constraints, infrastructure support, and robustness requirements that are very different from those faced by traditional systems. One of the challenges in developing the needed information technology architecture and design methodology for these systems is that one needs to both conduct experimental work and develop a conceptual understanding of the problem domain. This research studies: Application: Use as a driver application capability, reconfigurable fabric (R-Fabric) based on a combination of (i) the technology of flexible electronics using organic materials, and (ii) computing, communication, and sensing elements implemented as E-Buttons. Architecture: Develop the general architecture concepts and cost/performance optimization techniques. The issues that we will focus on will include (i) appropriate primitives for composing the architecture, (ii) system interconnect network optimized for the electrical characteristics of the organic electronics, (iii) techniques to cope with the high ration of communication to computation cost, and (iv) architecture level self-configuration and re-configuration for robust operation. Programming: Develop techniques and primitives for programming a system composed of hundreds of computation, storage, sensing, and actuation elements that are individually resource constrained and are connected by a structured but fault-prone high-cost interconnect network. Processors: Develop domain-specific processor architecture optimized for these power-constrained, physically coupled applications.Design Methodology: Develop techniques and hybrid emulation platform for systematic architecture exploration, simulation, optimization, and reconfiguration of these systems.