Dynamic reconfiguration of IP based systems

The design of embedded systems is a complex iterative process. To shorten the design cycles, it is useful to utilize suitable intellectual properties (IPs). At some point during the service life of a product, the owner of the product might wish for additional functions in the device, even if the device is still fully functional. This can be realized by the technique of reconfiguration, a capability usually supported by prototyping platforms such as FPGAs. Automation of various portions of the embedded system design process is necessary in order to make effective use of IPs and reconfiguration capabilities. This implies the specification of a new design flow. In this paper we propose such a design flow and describe the mechanisms we developed for automation. We present relevant aspects for composing an optimized system based on IPs and detail the automatic generation of the system implementation on a prototyping platform. Finally, we give an example, which illustrates the applicability of the proposed design flow.