FlexiCores: low footprint, high yield, field reprogrammable flexible microprocessors

Flexible electronics is a promising approach to target applications whose computational needs are not met by traditional silicon-based electronics due to their conformality, thinness, or cost requirements. A microprocessor is a critical component for many such applications; however, it is unclear whether it is feasible to build flexible processors at scale (i.e., at high yield), since very few flexible microprocessors have been reported and no yield data or data from multiple chips has been reported. Also, prior manufactured flexible systems were not field-reprogrammable and were evaluated either on a simple set of test vectors or a single program. A working flexible microprocessor chip supporting complex or multiple applications has not been demonstrated. Finally, no prior work performs a design space of flexible microprocessors to optimize area, code size, and energy of such microprocessors.