Optically reconfigurable gate array with an angle-multiplexed holographic memory

Abstract

Optically reconfigurable gate arrays (ORGAs) have been developed to achieve a high-performance FPGA with numerous configuration contexts. In the architecture, an optical memory technology or a holographic memory technology has been introduced so that the architecture can have numerous configuration contexts and high-speed reconfiguration capability. Results show that the architecture can achieve a large virtual gate count that is much larger than those of currently available VLSIs. To date, ORGAs with a spatially multiplex holographic memory have been reported. However, the spatially multiplexed holographic memory can only have a small number of configuration contexts, which are limited to about 256 configuration contexts. To implement more than a million configuration contexts, an angle-multiplex holographic memory must be used. However, no ORGA with an angle multiplex holographic memory that can sufficiently exploit the huge storage capacity of a holographic memory has ever been reported. Therefore, this paper presents a proposal of a novel ORGA with an angle-multiplexed holographic memory. The architecture can open the possibility of providing a million configuration contexts for a multi-context FPGA.