Configware

Re-configurable or the coarse-grained reconfigurable platforms which includes the FPGA’s (field-programmable gate arrays) or the reconfigurable data path arrays (rDPAs) are commonly termed as morphware. The program resource of morphware is called the configware (configuration ware). It was in the mid 90’s, Prof. Reiner Hartenstein and TU Kaiserslautern, came up with this revolutionary concept. Configware is considered to be a matching part of the software, but differs by their method of programming. Software usually of an instruction-based nature, has always a procedural way of programming while configware confines to the structural method of programming.

The configware code files having parts of unique nature, to specific producers, always represent the bit code configuration files for a FPGA (field-programmable gate array)

or for a rDPA (morphware). They also symbolise the configuration of logic blocks, which are internal to the device, their interconnection between the blocks and the external I/O. Some software of the configuration management disposition always manages these configuration code files. Data scheduling is initiated using flow-ware, once the configuration is through and the resources are available.

These days, von-Neumann-like processors employs configware compilers and other configware application development support tools, as their software which is likely to change in the future for many reasons. The emerging operating systems for configware (CW-OS) gains the edge, above the operating systems for software (SW-OS) with respect to its ability to manage multi-tasking and other administrative jobs on the reconfigurable platforms. CW-OS also gets the upper hand in reconfigurable systems, where the parts of the reconfigurable resources are at execution mode while the other parts are at configuration mode and also achieve the flexibility and the resource saving through the swapping of configware code modules.