Comma Corp Management

Steve Casselman is President and CEO

Steve Casselman is one of the founders of reconfigurable computing.

Steve's first Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) proposal in 1987. This is how we do reconfigurable computing today. Steve is the first person to suggest that FPGAs could be architected into supercomputers.

Steve's first paper was at the first FCCM, in 1993. This paper proposes what is now called fused math. Outlines unified binary images for software and hardware programs. It explains why Amdahl's law does not apply to FPGA based systems.

Virtual Computer Corporation's Hardware Object Technology (HOT). Runtime reconfiguration system with bitstream compression and remote configuration.

Steve's issued patents:

Title Priority Date Status Referenced by other patents Overview of claims
FPGA virtual computer for executing a sequence of program instructions by successively reconfiguring a group of FPGA in response to those instructions July 29, 1992

Issued November 4, 1997

5,684,980

190 Runtime generation of bitstreams.
Computer network of distributed virtual computers which are EAC reconfigurable in response to instruction to be executed July 29, 1992

Issued September 1, 1998

5,802,290

229

Continuation of 5,684,980

Runtime configuration over a network. Computing with FPGAs interconnected over a network.

Computer with programmable arrays which are reconfigurable in response to instructions to be executed July 29, 1992

Issued February 8, 2000

6,023,755

128

Continuation in part of 5,684,980

Partial runtime reconfiguration (PRTR)

This patent's claims used the term Field Programmable Gates, FPGs.

Modular, hybrid processor and method for producing a modular, hybrid processor September 23, 1996

Issued January 23, 2001

6,178,494

69 Intel 80486 and Xc6200 in the same package (and then on the same die) , pin compatible with the 80486. Says both could be on the same die. Basically the first FPGA plus processor chip.
Virtual computer of plural FPG's successively reconfigured in response to a succession of inputs
July 29, 1992

Issued September 11, 2001

6,289,440

98

Continuation in part of 5,684,980

More PRTR claims. Compiling FPGAs on FPGAs.

FPGA co-processor for accelerated computation Jul 28, 2006

Issued December 21, 2010

7,856,545

13 FPGA in the CPU (AMD Opteron) socket. Otherwise known as "the socket stealing" patent
Configurable processor module accelerator using a programmable logic device Jul 28, 2006

Issued December 21, 2010

7,856,546

14 FPGA in CPU socket with extra memory.
Reconfiguration of an accelerator module having a programmable logic device Feb 25, 2008

Issued March 27, 2012

8,145,894

1 Fully reconfiguring the FPGA in the CPU socket during runtime without rebooting.
Accelerator system for use with secure data storage May 28, 2010

Issued December 3, 2013

8,601,498

0 A way to encrypt and handle data in a way that the OS thinks it touched the data but the data all goes through the FPGA.
Accelerator system for remote data storage May 27, 2011

Issued September 2, 2014

8,824,492

0 Basically Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) for FPGAs
Memory architecture optimized for random access June 1, 2012

Issued March 10, 2015

8,977,930

0 A way to organize physical memory based on burst length for lower power and higher random access.
Placement based arithmetic operator selection May 15, 2014

Issued May 26, 2015

9,043,739

0 A way to more efficiently use logic and DSP resources by doing a high level placement and congestion study then picking a DSP or logic implementation of your math.