FPGA

FPGA
( Field programmable gate array )
April 2008
Prepared by :
Muhammad Ziyada
Muhammad Al tabakh
Contents
Hardware engineers vs software developers
FPGA Market
History of FPGA
Modern developments
Architecture
Design and programming

Hardware designers vs software developers
The hardware engineers roll up their sleeves and work for months without a break
software programmers would sit back and relax, or play ping-pong, until the hardware was stable.
the hardware design would quickly become a hardware redesign for some perceived deficiency or new feature request
VHDL solution
In the early days, circuits as gate-level schematics.
saved by (HDLs).
allowed us to describe the functionality
Allowed design to be quickly and easily represented and simulated
VHDL
VHSIC hardware description language
developed at the behest of the US Department of Defense
alternative to huge, complex manuals which were subject to implementation-specific details
logic simulators were developed to read the VHDL files
logic synthesis tools that read the VHDL
FPGA market
FPGA Market Will Reach $2.75 Billion by Decade’s End
FPGA market
January 2008
Celoxica Holdings has agreed the $3m sale of its electronic system level (ESL) business to US firm Catalytic.
With this move, we can synthesize the top two languages for high-level algorithm development — C and MATLAB — and deliver both software and hardware implementations
FPGA market
Aerospace & Defense
Automotive
Broadcast Consumer
Data Processing and Storage
Industrial / Scientific / Medical
Wired Communications
Wireless Communications
FPGA market
Brief history
the invention of the very first
computers in the 1940`s and 1950`s
A Xilinx co-founder, Ross Freeman, invented the field programmable gate array in 1984
FPGA come after many earlier devices
Modern development
Configurable Logic Blocks
Registers (flip flops) for fast data storage
. Logic Routing
Input/Output Blocks
Basic pin logic (flip flops, muxs, etc)
Block Ram
Internal memory for data storage
Digital Clock Managers
Clock distribution
Programmable Routing Matrix
"Pros" and "Cons"
Pros
Low power consumption; ideal for portable electronics devices.
Upgradeable using software, instead of extensive hardware replacement .
Low cost of overhead .
Sometimes replaces as many as twenty traditional PALs.
Parallel computing possibilities .
Cons
High cost of fabricating a completely new chip
Size constraints / limitations
More difficult to code & debug
Many applications still are, and may remain, in the theoretical phase
"Pros" and "Cons"
FPGA vs classical architecture
Classical operation
Fetch an instruction
Fetch a piece of data
Fetch another piece of data
Perform an operation
Store the result
:
Do the same thing all over again
FPGA vs classical architecture
y = (a * b) + (c * d) + (e * f) + (g * h);

the multiplications are performed in parallel without the need to fetch and decode the instructions. This results in orders-of-magnitude speed improvement.
FPGA vs conventional circuit
The rise of FPGA
The first devices were primitive diode matrices used in TV channel selectors, HAM radio tuners, emerging defense and space applications.
replaced by more capable logic devices based on arrays of combinatorial gates
dramatic change in reprogram ability, more flexible interconnect architectures.
The rise of FPGA
Programmable Logic Arrays (PLA)
The rise of FPGA
Programmable Array Logic (PAL)
The rise of FPGA
Complex PLDs (CPLDs)
The rise of FPGA
Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
Main vendors
Xilinx spartan and vertix series
ise webback software
Altera cyclon series
Quartus software
Mentor Graphic
FPGAdv software
FPGA design



skip
FPGA design
FPGA programming
Languages
HDL languages ( VHDL and VERILOG )
Truth table
Block diagram
Schematic diagram
Flowchart
State machine
And more
VHDL code
LIBRARY ieee ;
USE ieee.std_logic_1164.all ;
ENTITY mux2to1 IS
PORT ( w0, w1, s : IN STD_LOGIC ;
f : OUT STD_LOGIC ) ;
END mux2to1 ;
ARCHITECTURE Behavior OF mux2to1 IS
BEGIN
PROCESS ( w0, w1, s )
BEGIN
IF s = `0` THEN
f <= w0 ;
ELSE f <= w1 ;
END IF ;
END PROCESS ;
END Behavior ;;
Soft cores
MicroBlaze,PowerPC,Nios,… soft processor
create complete systems composed of, for example, an 8- or 16-bit controller, a UART, and other such I/O devices on a single programmable chip



Soft processor
References
Practical FPGA Programming in C
By David Pellerin, Scott Thibault
Ece230 vhdl lectures
By Khurram Waheed
VHDL cookbook
By peter j.ashenden
Thank you

Muhammad ziyada
[email protected]
+20113246609
Muhammad al tabakh
[email protected]
+20121539035