Introduction to Reconfigurable Computing: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications Review

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Introduction to Reconfigurable Computing: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications ReviewIn some ways, this book offers the most thorough introduction to reconfigurable computing (RC) that I've seen. It starts with the platforms themselves, from Estrin's work around 1960 up to this year's Virtex 5 family of FPGAs. That discussion includes mainstream technologies, as well as recent explorations into coarse-grained and other architectures and a few of the commercially failed ideas that have arisen over time.
The next two chapters address basic issues in logic synthesis, at the gate level and datapath level. No one intro can cover the entire literature of the field, but this goes into mathematically proven depth in a few important algorithms. Two more chapters (5 and 7) address re-use the computing fabric over time, first as a formal exercise combining geometric constraints with temporal dependencies and then as a pragmatic exercise in terms of current chips and tools. Despite the amount of research attention that partial reconfiguration has gotten, tools are still crude and researchy. Instead of a commercial tool flow, expect to find a series of isolated puddles. Two more chapters (6 and 8) address system-on-chip issues. Finally, chapter 9 devotes about 30 pages to RC applications - or does it?
Really, it just names the applications and mentions a bit of why reconfigurability suits them. It doesn't go into much depth about the computations themselves. Even then, the discussion has more multiprocessor-on-chip flavor than any real sense of what makes FPGA-based RC truly different from von Neumann. I don't think the term "systolic array" appears anywhere.
I suppose it depends on what you want. Tool-builders will find a solid intro that works forward from a cold start. They'll see familiar compilation technologies applied in distinctive ways, with plenty of references for anyone in need of details. They'll see many of the unique problems in swapping parts of the computation on and off a working chip. RC practitioners take synthesis for granted though - synthesis algorithms hold only incidental interest. Partial reconfiguration, as the author emphasizes it, works only on one or two of the most recent chip famiies from Xilinx, and not at all on the Altera chips that are becoming more common in the RC arena. Applications focus on the embedded - media, signal processing, and the like - with scant mention of performance computing, my central interest. Although wide-ranging and well-researched, I have trouble imagining the RC practitioner who will take this book to the lab bench.
-- wiredweirdIntroduction to Reconfigurable Computing: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications Overview

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