Entropy, Counting, and Programmable Interconnect

Conventional reconfigurable components have substantially more interconnect configuration bits than they strictly need. Using counting arguments we can establish loose bounds on the number of programmable bits actually required to describe an interconnect. We apply these bounds in crude form to some existing devices, demonstrating the large redundancy in their programmable bit streams. In this process we review and demonstrate basic Acknowledgments: This research is supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Rome Labs contract number F30602-94-C-0252. An abbreviated version of this paper appears in Proceedings of the 1996 International Symposium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Copyright c fl1996 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial ad..