A runtime adaptive controller for supporting hardware components with variable latency

Nowadays, the design of hardware cores has to necessarily deal with unpredictable components, due to process variation or to the interaction with external modules (e.g., memories, sensors, IP cores). Adaptive systems are, thus, one of the most important solutions to substitute traditional approaches, based on analysis at design time, especially in critical environments. In this paper, we present an innovative lightweight controller architecture able to automatically adjust its behavior at run-time. It interacts with the surrounding environment by means of a simple token-based communication schema. We examine the capabilities of the proposed architectural model to adapt its behavior during the execution, compared to classical ones, such as the finite state machine.