Hello,
Could U please suggest me a development board which really supports
partial/dynamic reconfiguration, satisfying one crucial requirement:

** being shipped with one or more reference designs exploiting
partial/dynamic reconf **

It would also be nice if the board:
- exploited FPGA self-reconf capabilities (e.g., the Xilinx ICAP
component)
- cost less than 1000 $
- had an embedded OS ported on it

I of course know not all these requirements can be satisfied at the
same time!! :)
the OS is not really important for now...

Many many thanks for your help

pablo

Any board out there with a Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, or Virtex-4 will
support run-time reconfiguration through the Internal Configuration
Access Port (ICAP).  ucLinux can be easily run on a MicroBlaze on any
of these boards and Monta Vista Linux is available on the PPC on many
2vp boards.

As for a board that has reference designs supporting partial dynamic
reconfiguration, I know of none that exist.  Partial reconfiguration is
not an easy task and, as several other posts will contest to, it is
currently broken in the tools.

I have heard that Xilinx is working on the problem, as there is growing
demand for this from the Software Defined Radio community.

Stephen

John Williams' "Partial Reconfiguration on Xilinx Devices" email list is
another resource:
http://www.cs.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux/Mailing_List/

The archive is available here:
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~listarch/partial-reconfig/

pablo wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> Could U please suggest me a development board which really supports
> partial/dynamic reconfiguration, satisfying one crucial requirement:
> 
> ** being shipped with one or more reference designs exploiting
> partial/dynamic reconf **
> 
> It would also be nice if the board:
> - exploited FPGA self-reconf capabilities (e.g., the Xilinx ICAP
> component)
> - cost less than 1000 $
> - had an embedded OS ported on it
> 
> I of course know not all these requirements can be satisfied at the
> same time!! :)
> the OS is not really important for now...
> 
> Many many thanks for your help
> 
> pablo

Stephen Craven ha scritto:

> Any board out there with a Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, or Virtex-4 will
> support run-time reconfiguration through the Internal Configuration
> Access Port (ICAP).  ucLinux can be easily run on a MicroBlaze on any
> of these boards and Monta Vista Linux is available on the PPC on many
> 2vp boards.
>
> As for a board that has reference designs supporting partial dynamic
> reconfiguration, I know of none that exist.  Partial reconfiguration is
> not an easy task and, as several other posts will contest to, it is
> currently broken in the tools.
>


My question then is...
what do I do with the ICAP component if partial reconfiguration (and
thus, in particular, self-configuration, which is partial and dynamic
by definition) is not supported by the development tools????

Or, do ICAP-based self-configuring designs actually exist out there?
If this is the case, how could I find some examples?

Many thanks again
pablo


> I have heard that Xilinx is working on the problem, as there is growing
> demand for this from the Software Defined Radio community.
> 
> Stephen

"pablo" <sec_lab@libero.it> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1140966379.138525.199430@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Stephen Craven ha scritto:
>
>> Any board out there with a Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, or Virtex-4 will
>> support run-time reconfiguration through the Internal Configuration
>> Access Port (ICAP).  ucLinux can be easily run on a MicroBlaze on any
>> of these boards and Monta Vista Linux is available on the PPC on many
>> 2vp boards.
>>
>> As for a board that has reference designs supporting partial dynamic
>> reconfiguration, I know of none that exist.  Partial reconfiguration is
>> not an easy task and, as several other posts will contest to, it is
>> currently broken in the tools.
>>
>
>
> My question then is...
> what do I do with the ICAP component if partial reconfiguration (and
> thus, in particular, self-configuration, which is partial and dynamic
> by definition) is not supported by the development tools????
>
> Or, do ICAP-based self-configuring designs actually exist out there?
> If this is the case, how could I find some examples?
>
> Many thanks again
> pablo
>
>
>> I have heard that Xilinx is working on the problem, as there is growing
>> demand for this from the Software Defined Radio community.
>>
>> Stephen
>

nomans land, no examples, possible by theory only.
if you want then its a lot of hard work on pain.

sure it depends what you want todo, implementing small changes
isnt a problem, just look the locations in the .LL file and rewrite using 
ICAP
but if you want to reload larger part of the FPGA then it comes a major 
problem

Antti

Hi,

I have written a presentation about my PhD. Thesis work. My final 
application was a hardware-accelerated SSH version over a 
MicroBlaze-uCLinux Self-reconfigurable system based on Spartan-3 FPGA. 
On it, all information about partial reconfiguration is shown. I think 
it can be useful for you. I had to resolve the lack of the ICAP module 
(Spartan-3 has not ICAP, so I used a external circuit) and a lot of 
problems related with partial reconfiguration (I developed a custom tool 
that was successfully tested in Spartan-3, Virtex-E and Virtex-II). Of 
course, I hope that future ISE versions resolve the problems :)

Link:
http://www.ii.uam.es/~igonzale/recursos/Self_Reconfigurable_Coprocessors.pdf

Regards,

Ivan


Antti Lukats wrote:
> "pablo" <sec_lab@libero.it> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
> news:1140966379.138525.199430@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> Stephen Craven ha scritto:
>>
>>> Any board out there with a Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, or Virtex-4 will
>>> support run-time reconfiguration through the Internal Configuration
>>> Access Port (ICAP).  ucLinux can be easily run on a MicroBlaze on any
>>> of these boards and Monta Vista Linux is available on the PPC on many
>>> 2vp boards.
>>>
>>> As for a board that has reference designs supporting partial dynamic
>>> reconfiguration, I know of none that exist.  Partial reconfiguration is
>>> not an easy task and, as several other posts will contest to, it is
>>> currently broken in the tools.
>>>
>>
>> My question then is...
>> what do I do with the ICAP component if partial reconfiguration (and
>> thus, in particular, self-configuration, which is partial and dynamic
>> by definition) is not supported by the development tools????
>>
>> Or, do ICAP-based self-configuring designs actually exist out there?
>> If this is the case, how could I find some examples?
>>
>> Many thanks again
>> pablo
>>
>>
>>> I have heard that Xilinx is working on the problem, as there is growing
>>> demand for this from the Software Defined Radio community.
>>>
>>> Stephen
> 
> nomans land, no examples, possible by theory only.
> if you want then its a lot of hard work on pain.
> 
> sure it depends what you want todo, implementing small changes
> isnt a problem, just look the locations in the .LL file and rewrite using 
> ICAP
> but if you want to reload larger part of the FPGA then it comes a major 
> problem
> 
> Antti
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

> Hello,
> Could U please suggest me a development board which really supports
> partial/dynamic reconfiguration, satisfying one crucial requirement:
>
> ** being shipped with one or more reference designs exploiting
> partial/dynamic reconf **
>
> It would also be nice if the board:
> - exploited FPGA self-reconf capabilities (e.g., the Xilinx ICAP
> component)
> - cost less than 1000 $
> - had an embedded OS ported on it
>
> I of course know not all these requirements can be satisfied at the
> same time!! :)
> the OS is not really important for now...
>
> Many many thanks for your help
>
> pablo

Hi pablo,

we have developed a rapid prototyping system with partial
reconfiguration in mind (and currently working on another one...). For
more information visit
http://www.raptor2000.de
http://www.raptor2000.de/sct/extern/raptor2000/module/
http://www.raptor2000.de/sct/extern/raptor2000/hauptplatine/
(mostly in german...sorry for that). Feel free to contact us for more
information, we are also working on partial reconfiguration.

Regards

Jens