2005/05/02 by Jan van der Veen, Sandor P. Fekete, van der Veen, Jan +9
Computer Science · #B.7 #C.3 #C.5 #Data Structures and Algorithms (cs.DS) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Hardware Architecture (cs.AR) #cs.AR #cs.DS
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cs/0505005
10 pages, 11 figures, 1 table, Latex, to appear in "Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms" as a "Distinguished Paper"
arxiv created 2005/05/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Modern generations of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) allow for partial reconfiguration. In an online context, where the sequence of modules to be loaded on the FPGA is unknown beforehand, repeated insertion and deletion of modules leads to progressive fragmentation of the available space, making defragmentation an important issue. We address this problem by propose an online and an offline component for the defragmentation of the available space. We consider defragmenting the module layout on a reconfigurable device. This corresponds to solving a two-dimensional strip packing problem. Problems of this type are NP-hard in the strong sense, and previous algorithmic results are rather limited. Based on a graph-theoretic characterization of feasible packings, we develop a method that can solve two-dimensional defragmentation instances of practical size to optimality. Our approach is validated for a set of benchmark instances.