Unidirectional switch-boxes for synthesizable reconfigurable arrays

The new trend in designing reconfigurable system-on-chip (SoC) by using embedded FPGAs provides numerous improvements to ASIC designs due to added flexibility and improvements in functionality. Further advantages are introduced if FPGA is provided as a synthesis to core that fits well in the SoC architecture and design flow. This paper proposes and investigates different design of switch-boxes suitable for synthesis in reconfigurable coarse-grain architectures. The various designs are evaluated and compared in terms of power consumption, area, delays and routability.