Abstract
Chameleon is an experimental workstation based on a RISC processor. It provides unprecedented flexibility and speed for certain applications due to the use of RAM-configurable Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs are used to replace glue logic as well as to provide a non-dedicated computation resource. This resource can be regarded as a general purpose coprocessor which can be reconfigured and thus transformed into a special purpose coprocessor in milliseconds at run-time. The coprocessor can be used both for handling complex input/output functions as well as to replace time-critical inner loops of user programs running on the central processing unit. Chameleon radically relies on FPGAs for all input/output functions. It serves as a means to probe the limits of FPGA usage while at the same time being the development system for its own FPGA circuits.
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© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Heeb, B., Pfister, C. (1993). Chameleon: A workstation of a different colour. In: Grünbacher, H., Hartenstein, R.W. (eds) Field-Programmable Gate Arrays: Architecture and Tools for Rapid Prototyping. FPL 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 705. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57091-8_40
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57091-8_40
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