Shell Circuit Design for Partial Reconfiguration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Implementing user designs in integrated circuits (ICs) is time-consuming and resource-intensive due to the need for connecting user designs to platform designs through electronic design automation (EDA) tools, which requires significant computational resources and exposes sensitive design information, potentially compromising security.
Innovation Solution
Generating a shell circuit design from the platform design, which is a smaller, abstracted representation that allows EDA tools to implement user designs more efficiently while hiding sensitive information, thereby reducing computational requirements and enhancing security.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the full platform design is used for implementing user designs through EDA tools, then complete design information and routing capabilities are available, but implementation time and computational resource usage increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential elements needed for user design implementation from the full platform design. A shell circuit design is generated that contains only the minimum necessary platform circuitry and routing information required to support user designs, eliminating unnecessary design details and reducing the data volume that EDA tools must process, thereby reducing implementation time while maintaining sufficient design information completeness
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the platform design into essential and non-essential components. The shell circuit design represents the essential segment that provides necessary routing and timing information, while non-essential segments are omitted. This segmentation allows EDA tools to work with a reduced subset of the full platform design, achieving faster implementation without losing critical design information
2Adaptability or versatility
If the full platform design is used for implementing user designs, then complete routing information is available, but computational resource usage increases by up to 25%
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the routing information that is actually needed for user design implementation from the full platform design. The shell circuit design includes minimal routing data sufficient to support user design placement and interconnection, eliminating excessive routing information that would otherwise consume computational resources during EDA tool processing, thereby reducing energy usage by up to 25% while maintaining adequate routing capability
3Loss of information
If the full platform design is used, then all design details are visible, but security is compromised by exposing sensitive platform design information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes sensitive design information from the platform design before presenting it to users through the shell circuit design. Only non-sensitive, essential routing and timing information is retained in the shell, while sensitive platform design details are omitted. This extraction approach maintains necessary design detail visibility for user design implementation while improving security by masking sensitive platform information
Solution Approach 2:
The shell circuit design acts as an intermediary between the full platform design and user designs. It provides the necessary interface information for user design integration while hiding the sensitive details of the underlying platform design. This intermediary layer allows design detail visibility sufficient for implementation while protecting security by preventing direct exposure of sensitive platform information
4Productivity
If a shell circuit design is generated from the platform design, then implementation time is reduced by up to 40%, but the design is abstracted and simplified
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the essential functional elements needed for user design implementation while removing unnecessary complexity from the platform design. The shell circuit design retains sufficient structural information to support correct user design integration and timing analysis, but omits excessive detail that would otherwise increase device complexity and slow down implementation, achieving productivity improvement of up to 40%
Data Source
AI summary
Partial reconfiguration of a programmable integrated circuit can include loading, using computer hardware, a platform design including a module black-box instance corresponding to a user design and marking, using the computer hardware, data of the platform design including data relating to synchronous boundary crossings between the platform design and the module black-box instance and implementation data for the platform design within an extended routing region available for routing the user design. Unmarked data can be removed from the platform design resulting in a shell circuit design. The user design can be implemented based on the shell circuit design and timing constraints corresponding to the marked data in the shell circuit design.