Cross-Architectural Design Space Exploration Tool for Reconfigurable Processors

Processors that deploy fine-grained reconfigurable fabrics to implement application-specific accelerators on-demand obtained significant attention within the last decade. They trade-off the flexibility of general-purpose processors with the performance of application-specific circuits without tailoring the processor towards a specific application domain like Application Specific Instruction Set Processors (ASIPs). Vast amounts of reconfigurable processors have been proposed, differing in multifarious architectural decisions. However, it has always been an open question, which of the proposed concepts is more efficient in certain application and/or parameter scenarios. Various reconfigurable processors were investigated in certain scenarios, but never before a systematic design space exploration across diverse reconfigurable processor concepts has been conducted with the aim to aid a designer of a reconfigurable processor. We have developed a first-of-its-kind comprehensive design space exploration tool that allows to systematically explore diverse reconfigurable processors and architectural parameters. Our tool allows presenting the first cross-architectural design space exploration of multiple fine-grained reconfigurable processors on a fair comparable basis. After categorizing fine-grained reconfigurable processors and their relevant parameters, we present our tool and an in-depth analysis of reconfigurable processors within different relevant scenarios.