Reconfigurable Hardware Control Software

This paper addresses problems and solutions in a new domain of software engineering, the Reconfigurable Hardware Control Software (RHCS). RHCS is used in identification, control, management and use of Reconfigurable Hardware (RH) attached to a host system. According to Moore's law, hardware is renewed at least every two years. The Mannheim Reconfigurable Processors Group has successfully built five generations of RH in the past six years [4, 5]. Until now, every hardware built requires its own host software suite for control and interfacing, from low level kernel mode drivers up to high level application programming interfaces (API). This paper addresses this problem and describes approaches followed in the recent past. It also characterises the problems that have arisen and proposes a new solution, dynamically connected device representations. Its advantages and tradeoffs are examined and areas for further investigations are identified.