Automated Functional Unit Remapping for PLD Design Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current electronic circuit design methods for Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) lack efficient methods for partitioning between software and hardware implementations, leading to suboptimal performance and resource utilization, as they often require manual programming and lack flexible, user-friendly design formats that can optimize for quality metrics like throughput and area.
Innovation Solution
An automated method that maps functional units of an electronic design to alternative implementations based on quality metrics, selecting between hardware and software implementations to improve performance indicators, using quality indicators to identify and remap functional units from initial to alternative implementations, potentially switching between hardware and software or decomposing/merging units to optimize resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual programming methods are used for PLD design, then design flexibility is maintained, but design efficiency and optimization are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs automated quality assessment and remapping of functional units without requiring manual intervention. The computer automatically identifies suboptimal hardware implementations and remaps them to alternative implementations based on quality metrics, enabling the design process to optimize itself
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual programming and assessment mechanisms with automated computer-based systems. The computer executes algorithms to assess quality metrics, identify remapping opportunities, and generate alternative implementations, substituting human manual operations with automated computational processes
2Productivity
If hardware implementation is used for all functional units, then throughput is improved, but resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different implementation types (hardware or software) to different functional units based on their individual quality metrics and characteristics. Rather than uniformly implementing all units in hardware, the system selectively remaps specific functional units to software implementations when appropriate, optimizing the balance between throughput and resource consumption on a unit-by-unit basis
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the implementation parameter (hardware vs. software) for functional units based on quality metric assessments. By dynamically adjusting this parameter through automated remapping, the system optimizes the trade-off between throughput performance and resource utilization
3Productivity
If automated remapping is implemented, then performance optimization is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The automated remapping system is self-contained and self-executing, using pre-established quality metrics and algorithms to perform assessments and remapping operations without requiring external complex control mechanisms. The system serves itself by automatically identifying and resolving optimization opportunities
4Manufacturing precision
If quality metric assessment is performed for all functional units, then mapping precision is improved, but computational overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs quality metric assessment selectively rather than uniformly across all functional units. By focusing assessment on units where remapping opportunities are most likely or most beneficial, the system achieves high mapping precision for critical units while minimizing unnecessary computational overhead
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosure is made of approaches for mapping an electronic design specification to an implementation. In one approach, quality metrics are associated with functional units of the design, and the functional units are mapped to respective initial implementations. For each functional unit a respective quality indicator is determined based on the mapping. The quality indicator specifies a degree to which the functional unit achieves the associated quality metric. At least one of the functional units is selected for remapping based on the quality indicator of that functional unit or the quality indicator of another functional unit. An alternative implementation to the initial implementation is selected for each selected functional unit to improve the quality indicator. The selected functional unit is remapped to the selected alternative implementation.