Reconfigurable Systems Emerge

As the world of electronics shifts from tethered devices to mobile devices, reconfigurable systems will emerge. After twenty years, the PC is now good enough for most consumers’ needs. As PC development becomes less important, engineering emphasis shifts to mobile devices: digital cameras, MP3 players, and cell phones. Mobile devices redirect the design goal from cost performance to cost-performance-per-watt. Smaller transistors don’t help because they are too expensive and because they leak too much. The microprocessor has effectively stalled hardware design for thirty years, and it will not be the workhorse in mobile devices of the future. Both microprocessors and DSPs are unsuitable for mobile devices because instruction-based processing is computationally inefficient and because they use too much energy. Today’s memory components are also unsuitable. New programmable logic devices, based on next-generation non-volatile memory, will enable efficient reconfigurable systems.