Design methodology for partial dynamic reconfiguration: a new degree of freedom in the HW/SW codesign

Many emerging products in communication, computing and consumer electronics demand that their functionality re-mains flexible also after the system has been manufactured and that is why the reconfiguration is starting to be con-sidered into the design flow as a new relevant degree of freedom, in which the designer can have the system au-tonomously modify its functionalities according to the appli-cation’s changing needs. Therefore, reconfigurable devices, such as FPGAs, introduce yet another degree of freedom in the design workflow: the designer can have the system au-tonomously modify the functionality carried out by the IP core according to the application’s changing needs while it runs. Research in this field is, indeed, being driven towards a more thorough exploitation of the reconfiguration capa