(Self-)reconfigurable finite state machines: theory and implementation

In this paper, we introduce the concept of (self-)reconfigurable finite state machines as a formal model to describe state-machines implemented in hardware that may be reconfigured during operation. By the advent of reconfigurable logic devices such as FPGAs, this model may become important to characterize and implement (self-)reconfigurable hardware. An FSM is called (self-)reconfigurable if reconfiguration of either output function or transition function is initiated by the FSM itself and not based on external reconfiguration events. We propose an efficient hardware realisation and give algorithmic solutions and bounds for the reconfiguration overhead of migrating a given FSM specification into a new target FSM.