Steady advances in VLSI technology and design tools have extensively expanded the application domain
of digital signal processing over the past decade. While application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and
programmable digital signal processors (PDSPs) remain the implementation mechanisms of choice for many DSP
applications, increasingly new system implementations based on reconfigurable computing are being considered.
These flexible platforms, which offer the functional efficiency of hardware and the programmability of software, are
quickly maturing as the logic capacity of programmable devices follows Moore’s Law and advanced automated design
techniques become available. As initial reconfigurable technologies have emerged, newacademic and commercial
efforts have been initiated to support power optimization, cost reduction, and enhanced run-time performance.