Patent ID: 7752419

Claim:
An adaptive computing integrated circuit configurable to perform a plurality of functions, comprising: a first computational unit including a first plurality of heterogeneous computational elements; a first computational interconnection network coupled to the plurality of heterogeneous computational elements, the first computational interconnection network operative to configure connections between the first plurality of heterogeneous computational elements; a second digital processing unit including a second plurality of heterogeneous computational elements and a digital processing computational interconnection network coupled to the second plurality of heterogeneous computational elements, the second computational interconnection network operative to configure the connections between the second plurality of heterogeneous elements; wherein a first functional unit is configured by establishing connections between a first group of the first and second plurality of heterogeneous computational elements via the interconnection networks to implement a first function; wherein a second functional unit is configured by establishing connections between a second group of the first and second plurality of heterogeneous computational elements via the interconnection networks to implement a second function; and wherein if the second function is not currently used, one or more of the second group of heterogeneous computational elements are reconfigurable by changing the connections between the heterogeneous computational elements of the second group via the interconnection networks to implement the first function.