I am working on a study of embedded system. I am particularly interested in embedded system design using FPGA. Some articles suggest FPGA for rapid prototyping of an embedded system design. I couldn't come to a clear understanding of what prototyping mean in embedded system; and how using FPGA could be the fastest method for the so called "embedded system prototyping". I would like to have an explanation with good examples.
Prototype is testing of a design before getting into the manufacturing phase. Rapid depends on your timeline of choice ! Selection of FPGAs for rapid prototyping is because they provide a good benchmark for your hardware design that (probably) will be launched as a product. "Embedded" => to port the design on to a generic platform such as FPGAs with cells that are repetitive and can be configured as the need may be .
Applications of FPGAs was/is meant as a pilot study of various complexities such as timing, area occupancy on the die or floor of the IC (translates to physical dimension of the end product), power consumption/dissipation, latency to mention a few.
Eg: System on chip for networking or DSP units for floating point units ...
FPGAs were initially used as "glue logics" , now they have embedded processors (high end FPGAs- say Xilinx (Virtex-4 and beyond) ) not to mention the PLLs , memories and so on so that your designs performance improves. Also rather than having an external processor and having to communicate with them (Eg: nios in Altera's FPGAs) greatly reduces complications (for example a bus ) !
Hi,
Some people argue that using FPGA could be the fastest method for embedded systems prototyping. Well, in my point of view it is always dependent of your final application.
I can see great advantage of using FPGA when your have to handle with real-time data processing, with FPGA you can paralyse processes for instance, FPGA could be used such as a Data Memory Access.
On the other hand, VHDL code is not so easy to be implemented, so if you are looking for speed up the prototyping process take this in mind.
The concept of programming is feasible with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).
Gate arrays are good things to implement a desired function. Instead of collecting components and mounting on a PCB to realize a digital function, we can use FPGAs with software programming.
An FPGA board and software program can do it.
By programming in verilog, we can generate prototype circuits.
This process saves the time and money.
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