FPGA-Based Reconfigurable System: Research Progress and New Trend on High-Reliability Key Problems

Zeyu Li, Pinle Qin, Rui Chai, Yuchen Hao, Dongmei Zhang, Hui Li

Abstract: FPGA-based reconfigurable systems play a vital role in many critical domains by virtue of their unique advantages. They can effectively adapt to dynamically changing application scenarios, while featuring high parallelism and low power consumption. As a result, they have been widely adopted in key sectors such as aerospace, nuclear industry, and weapon equipment, where high performance and stability are of utmost importance. However, these systems face significant challenges. The continuous and drastic reduction in chip process size has led to increasingly complex and delicate internal circuit structures and physical characteristics. Meanwhile, the operating environments are often harsh and unpredictable. Additionally, the adoption of untrusted third-party foundries to reduce development costs further compounds these issues. Collectively, these factors make such systems highly susceptible to reliability threats, including environmental radiation, aging degradation, and malicious hardware attacks. These problems severely impact the stable operation and functionality of the systems. Therefore, ensuring the highly reliable operation of reconfigurable systems has become a critical issue that urgently needs to be addressed. There is a pressing need to summarize their technical characteristics, research status, and development trends comprehensively and in depth. In response, this paper conducts relevant research. By systematically reviewing 183 domestic and international research papers published between 2012 and 2024, it first provides a detailed analysis of the root causes of reliability issues in reconfigurable systems, thoroughly exploring their underlying mechanisms. Second, it focuses on the key technologies for achieving high reliability, encompassing four types of fault-tolerant design technologies, three types of aging mitigation technologies, and two types of hardware attack defense technologies. The paper comprehensively summarizes relevant research findings and the latest advancements in this field, offering a wealth of references for related research. Finally, it conducts a detailed comparative analysis and summary of the research hotspots in the field of high-reliability reconfigurable systems. It objectively evaluates the achievements and shortcomings of current research efforts and delves into the development trends of key technologies for high-reliability reconfigurable systems, providing clear directions for future research and practical applications.

External IDs:doi:10.3390/electronics15030548