Pipeline Morphing and Virtual Pipelines

. Pipeline morphing is a simple but effective technique for reconfiguring pipelined FPGA designs at run time. By overlapping computation and reconfiguration, the latency associated with emptying and refilling a pipeline can be avoided. We show how morphing can be applied to linear and mesh pipelines at both word-level and bit-level, and explain how this method can be implemented using Xilinx 6200 FPGAs. We also present an approach using morphing to map a large virtual pipeline onto a small physical pipeline, and the trade-offs involved are discussed. Introduction Pipeline architectures are commonly used in high-performance designs. This paper introduces morphing, a technique for enhancing the efficiency of reconfigurable pipelines at run time. We shall also describe the use of morphing in the emulation of large virtual pipelines by small physical pipelines, and explain how temporary storage can be used to improve performance. Implementing pipeline architectures using reconfigurable de..