Computer Architecture bayed on Autonomous Reconfigurable Logic Device

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In this project, architecture and applications based on autonomous reconfigurable logic devices has been explored in order to facilitate reconfigurable computing systems.Plastic Cell Architecture (PCA) is proposed as one of extensions of programmable logic devices with the unique characteristics as follows ; asynchronous cooperation of circuits referred to as objects; pipelined communication between objects ; array of homogeneous, relocatable, and expandable cells; unification of logic and memory; and dynamic reconfiguration by itself.In order to realize above characteristics, an architecture which consists of two layers is proposed referred to as a plastic part and a built-in part. The plastic part works as a programmable logic device or a memory. The built-in part works for communications between objects, access to memories, and reconfiguration of the plastic part. PCA is expected to work faster by asynchronous pipelined communication of objects, while it is considered to be difficult to accelerate the clock cycle of a circuit implemented in conventional PLDs because of the delay of global interconnections. Furthermore, PCA is expected to be a key device for reconfigurable computing by virtue of its unique architecture and flexibility in reconfiguration.In order to facilitate such a computing system, we have explored the followings ; (1) architectural design, physical design, and VLSI implementation of PCA device ; (2) design methodology, design language, computer aided design tools, simulators, and libraries for implementation of target functions in the PCA device ; (3) methodology to manage hardware resources for dynamic reconfiguration in PCA device ; (4) applications of PCA in the field of image codec, audio codec, and communications.