FPGA-Aware Garbage Collection in Java

— During codesign of a system, one still runs into the impedance mismatch between the software and hardware worlds. er identifies the different levels of abstraction of hardware and software as a major culprit of this mismatch. For example, when programming in high-level object-oriented languages like Java, one has disposal of objects, methods, memory management, . . . that facilitates development but these have to be largely abandoned when moving the same functionality into hardware. As a solution, this paper presents a virtual machine, based on the Jikes Research Virtual Machine, that is able to bridge the gap by providing the same capabilities to hardware components as to software components. This seamless integration is achieved by introducing an architecture and protocol that allow reconfigurable hardware and software to communicate with each other in a transparent manner i.e. no component of the design needs to be aware whether other components are implemented in hardware or ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: FPL
• Authors: Philippe Faes, Mark Christiaens, Dries Buytaert, Dirk Stroobandt
• Keywords: FPL 2005, Hardware, Reconfigurable Hardware, Virtual Machine