Real time prototyping method and a case study

Abstract

The paper presents a strategy for high-speed prototyping on FPGAs. The traditional "glue" synthesis strategy may not be sufficient for obtaining FPGA prototypes working at real speed. A key possibility to accelerate the performance of FPGA designs is the utilisation of the architectural features of modern FPGAs. To do this, no "push-button" solutions exists. The way to do this is to process one by one the critical blocks of the design and to decide about the implementation strategy for each block. As an example, a case study of a microprocessor circuit is presented. The microprocessor should be able to work in real time at 10 MHz frequency. To reach this speed in the Altera FLEX 10 KA technology, a special implementation strategy was elaborated for the microprocessor's RAM and ALU blocks.