Programmable Floating Gate FPAA Switches Are Not Dead Weight

Abstract

In most reconfigurable systems, such as FPAAs and FPGAs, the switch element and its associated memory cell is a necessary overhead for performing computation with the active components. However, floating gate based switches in large-scale FPAAs can be programmed anywhere between simple "off" and "on" connections, which allows these programmable conductances to be used as computational elements within synthesized circuits. This decreases the notion of switches as computational dead weight and increases the potential computational area efficiency within FPAAs