Reconfigurable logic: technology and applications

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have the potential to revolutionise the design of modern computer systems. With the current generation of reconfigurable arrays, the distinction between hardware, software and firmware blurs, permitting the designer to mix and match according to application. The promise of logic systems that can be configured in fractions of a second holds out the very real possibility of designing adaptive hardware-machines that can optimise themselves for their environment. The article introduces the internal design of an ultra-fine grain FPGA family, the Plessey/Pilkington ERA, (e.g. ERA60100) and briefly compares this with other families. The integrated design synthesis for mixed hardware/software systems is discussed and the article concludes with two examples of FPGA systems. One is a distributed instrumentation system for process tomography (the use of non-invasive sensors to measure and reconstruct the internal state of an industrial system), the other is a fast cellular automata machine