Reconfigurable Computing in Ubiquitous Computers: A Roadmap

Reconfigurable Computing (RC) is the presence of hardware that can be reconfigured to implement specific functionality more suitable for specially tailored hardware than on a simple uniprocessor [1]. Although the concept was first proposed in the 1960s, RC has only recently become increasingly popular due to the prevalence of ubiquitous computing: the gracefully integrated software and hardware to support and ease daily activities of human society. This scenario is appealing from a scientific point of view, since most of the open problems and several of the concepts require fine-tuning. This paper describes some selected areas of RC practice in the ubiquitous computing era, and presents a roadmap for the future.