METHOD FOR SUPPORTING MULTIPLE CONCURRENT PLUGINS IN A PROGRAMMABLE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

Techniques and apparatus for dynamically modifying a kernel (and associated user-specified circuitry) for a dynamic region of a programmable integrated circuit (IC) without affecting (e.g., while allowing) operation of other kernels ((and other associated user-specified circuitry) in the programmable IC. Dynamically modifying a kernel may include, for example, unloading an existing kernel, loading a new kernel, or replacing a first kernel with a second kernel). In the case of networking (e.g., in a data center application) where the programmable IC may be part of a hardware acceleration card (e.g., a network interface card (NIC)), the kernel may be user code referred to as a "plugin."