US Patent 7102386 Reconfigurable electronic device having interconnected data storage devices

A reconfigurable electronic device (100), e.g., a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or another type of complex programmable logic device (CPLD), has a first data storage device (120) and a second storage device (220) that are interconnected in a dual port memory mode of the reconfigurable electronic device (100). In this mode, the first data storage device (120) is accessible by a first decoder (140) both in a read as well as in a write mode, and the second data storage device (120) is accessible by a second decoder (140) in a read mode, thus providing an efficient dual port memory implementation. In a preferred embodiment, the first data storage device (120) is coupled to the second data storage device (220) via a configurable data copy circuit (160) that is responsive to a configuration signal provided via a configuration signal input (170), thus allowing for a very area efficient implementation of a dual port memory for reconfigurable electronic device (100).