A novel FPGA based virtual-PIG: Cell Matrix with embedded processor

Bio-inspired hardware has made great progress in the field of fault-tolerance during the past decades. This paper presents a novel architecture, the virtual-PIG (VPIG), due to the lack of an appropriate platform for the bio-inspired hardware research. The virtual-PIG is derived from PIG (Processing Integrated Grid) and RISA (Reconfigurable Integrated System Array). The VPIG cluster consists of a MCU and four cells which are similar to the PIG. The architecture of the VPIG is analyzed in details, and its FPGA implementation is also described. It is noteworthy that our MCU has the capability of the customizable instruction. To verify the VPIG, three experiments were conducted, including self-replication, 1-bit full adder evolution and 2-bit counter with self-repair. The experimental results show that our proposed VPIG has the feature of self-replication, self-evolution and self-repair, making it very suitable for bio-inspired hardware applications.

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