FPGA-based system said to greatly speed digital circuit design
7 February 2007
Programmable Logic
The HDK-0501 is a new FPGA-based design system that its manufacturer believes is the fastest way to get a digital logic circuit running, with an added bonus of controlling and interactively monitoring the circuit while it runs.
The New Zealand-based manufacturer, Hevday, says that the HDK-0501's unique software allows designers to program their digital designs from a visual interface into an FPGA, run it, control it and observe it for debugging, and save to ROM for automatic FPGA configuration at power-on.
The HDK-0501 uses a 200 000-gate 3,3 V Xilinx FPGA which includes 5000 flip-flops, 96 x I/O lines, and is like 'an FPGA with an operating system', creating a programmable controller with the ability to enter, display, run and pause the program, displaying and modifying the data as needed. But here the 'program' is a real digital circuit that runs at real digital circuit speeds. The HDK-0501 is 'instant logic' and operates straight out of the box.
The circuit can contain simple logic elements like gates and flip-flops, or complex functions, which the company says are limited only by the FPGA's capacity - state machines and highly complex subsystems can be entered too. The HDK-0501 implements synchronous logic circuits with clock speeds 10 to 100 MHz, and can be run, paused or single-stepped one clock at a time. Circuit state, including data, signals and state machine states can be continuously displayed on the PC screen.
With the company's interactive logic software, circuits are entered in a visual interface as schematics and state diagrams organised on the project tree. This offers significant advantages in understanding circuit operation and debugging logic circuit designs, including the ability to set breakpoints to pause on predefined conditions for circuit debug.
Drawing a schematic using library components, compiling the circuit, and observing it running, takes a few minutes for simple circuits; complex circuits take longer, but even complex circuits can be completed more quickly than by other methods, according to the company.
Intended for low-volume situations requiring the speed and flexibility of digital circuitry, the HDK- 0501's applications include: digital prototyping (immediately-available proven, customisable hardware); research (experimental circuits, control and monitoring); low-quantity systems (test equipment, custom instrumentation and equipment control); fast parallel systems (processing fast or multiple signals in parallel); teaching (demonstrating digital circuits, lab projects); and TCP/IP interfacing (equipment to PC interface, remote monitoring and control). For a demo see www.hevday.com/demo.html
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