Configurable and reconfigurable computing for digital signal processing
Recent DSP applications have many significant issues such as higher system performance, lower power consumption, higher design flexibility, faster time-to-market, and so on. Neither a conventional ASIC nor a conventional DSP can necessarily satisfy all the requirements at once nowadays. Therefore, an alternate for DSP applications will be needed to complement the drawbacks of ASICs and DSPs. This paper introduces a new computing paradigm called configurable computing or reconfigurable computing, which has more potential in terms of performance and flexibility. Conventional silicon platforms will not satisfy the conflicting demands of standard products and customization. However, silicon platforms such as FPGAs for configurable or reconfigurable computing are standardized in manufacturing but customized in application. This paper also presents a brief survey of the existing silicon platforms that support configuration or reconfiguration in the application domain of digital signal processing such as image processing, communication processing, audio and speech processing. Finally, we show some promising reconfigurable architectures for the digital signal processing and discuss the future of reconfigurable computing.
reconfigurable computing configurable computing digital signal processing fpga