Maintaining Virtual Areas on FPGAs using Strip Packing with Delays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a virtual area management concept for FPGAs, focusing on packing modules with time-varying resource requests, and compares ILP-based and heuristic solutions through experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to managing virtual areas on FPGAs with a new optimization problem for dynamic module packing.

Findings

ILP and heuristic methods are compared experimentally.

The new packing problem is distinct and previously unaddressed.

Advantages and challenges of virtual area management are discussed.

Abstract

Every year, the computing resources available on dynamically partially reconfigurable devices increase enormously. In the near future, we expect many applications to run on a single reconfigurable device. In this paper, we present a concept for multitasking on dynamically partially reconfigurable systems called virtual area management. We explain its advantages, show its challenges, and discuss possible solutions. Furthermore, we investigate one problem in more detail: Packing modules with time-varying resource requests. This problem from the reconfigurable computing field results in a completely new optimization problem not tackled before. ILP-based and heuristic approaches are compared in an experimental study and the drawbacks and benefits discussed.