Using multi-bit logic blocks and automated packing to improve field-programmable gate array density for implementing datapath circuits

Abstract

As the logic capacity of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) increases, they are being increasingly used to implement large arithmetic-intensive applications, which often contain a large proportion of datapath circuits. Since datapath circuits usually consist of regularly structured components, called bit-slices, it is possible to utilize datapath regularity in order to achieve significant area savings through FPGA architectural innovations. This work describes such an FPGA logic block architecture, called a multi-bit logic block, which employs configuration memory sharing to exploit datapath regularity. It is experimentally shown that, comparing to conventional FPGA logic blocks, the multi-bit logic blocks can achieve 18% to 26% logic block area reduction for implementing datapath circuits, which represents an overall FPGA area saving of 5% to 13%. A packing algorithm for the multi-bit logic block architecture is also proposed in this paper; and it is used to empirically find the best values for several important architectural parameters of the new architecture, including the most area efficient granularity values and the most area efficient amount of configuration memory sharing.