EN-412 FPGA-Based System

Design

Dr. Syed Azhar Ali Zaidi

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 Course Contents
• Introduction to FPGA Based System Design and its
applications
• FPGA Architecture and Synthesis process
• Implementation of Combinational and Sequential
logic circuits using Verilog HDL and their
functional verification
• Design of a control unit using FSM
• Static Timing Analysis
• Optimization of digital circuits in terms of area,
speed and power
• Fixed Point Implementation
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 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
CLO-1: Describe the architecture of FPGAs, logic design and
synthesis process (PLO-1)
CLO-2: Write HDL codes of combinational and sequential Circuits
and perform their functional verification (PLO-3)
CLO-3: Design the control unit of a Digital Circuit and implement
it using Finite State Machines (FSMs) (PLO-3)
CLO-4: Analyze Digital design in terms of area, power and speed
(PLO-2)

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 Reference Books
• Clive Maxfield, FPGAs: Instant Access, Newnes
• Steven Kilts, Advanced FPGA Design:
Architecture, Implementation and Optimization,,
Wiley-IEEE
• Pong. P. Chu, FPGA Prototyping by Verilog
Examples: Xilinx Spartan-3, Wiley-Interscience
• Samir Palnitkar, Verilog HDL, 2nd Edition, Prentice
Hall
• Michael D. Ciletti, Advanced Digital Design with
the Verilog HDL, Prentice Hall
• Wayne Wolf, FPGA-Based System Design, Pearson
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 Grading Criteria

Quizzes and Assignments: 25%

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 Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs): Introduction
• Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are
digital integrated circuits (ICs) that contain
configurable (programmable) blocks of logic
along with configurable interconnects
between these blocks.
• Design engineers can configure, or program,
such devices to perform a tremendous variety
of tasks.

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Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs): Introduction

Conceptual Structure of FPGA Device (Pong p. Chu)

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 Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs): Introduction

• Programming takes place “in the field”

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 Why Use FPGAs
• Programmable logic devices (PLDs)
– Simple logic functions
– Functionality is customized in the field.
• Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)
– large, complex functions
– high performance
– Build to address specific application
– Cannot modify functionality once the chip is fabricated
• FPGAs in middle of PLDs and ASICs
– Can be customized in field like PLDs but contains millions of
gates to implement complex logic functions.
– Performance Could be less than ASICs
– More Power consumption than ASICs

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 Advantages of FPGAs
• No wait from completing a design to a
working chip (less time to market)
• Excellent prototyping vehicles
• Same FPGA can be used in several different
designs reducing the inventory costs
• Cost of FPGA design is much lower than ASIC
design
• Implementing design changes is much easier
in FPGA.

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 Leading FPGA Manufacturers
• Xilinx (AMD)
• Altera (Intel)
• Lattice Semiconductor
• Microchip
• QuickLogic Corporation
• Efinix Inc.
• Flex Logix Technologies etc.

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/fpga-market-
194123367.html

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• Ultrascale and Ultrascale+ are the latest FPGA series from Xilinx
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 Applications of FPGAs
• ASICs and Custom Silicon
• Telecommunications
• Consumer Electronics
• Military and Aerospace
• Data Centers and Computing
• Healthcare
• Automotive
• Image and Video Processing
• Software-defined Radio
• Test, Measurement and Emulation
• Many Other applications

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/fpga-
market-194123367.html
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 FPGAs vs. CPUs
• Microprocessors share similar characteristics
such as re-programmability, compactness and
cheapness.
• Microprocessors are sequential and therefore
are slow as compared to FPGAs. Desired
operations can be performed faster inside
FPGAs in order of magnitude due to their
inherent parallelism.
• FPGAs consumes less power as compared to
FPGAs.
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 FPGA Programming – FPGAs vs. CPU
• Programming an FPGA is very different from
programming a microprocessor

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 FPGA Based Design Flow
• Design Entry – Schematic,
HDL, C, C++ etc.
• Synthesis – Create the
device netlist from the
Verilog or VHDL
description.
• Implementation –
Translate, Map, Place and
Route
• Device Programming –
Create a bit stream (a .bit
file) used to configure the
target FPGA
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 Hardware Description Languages
(HDLs)
• Standard Languages used to describe digital
circuits.
• HDL allows the designer to model the
concurrency of processes found in hardware
elements.
• Two popular languages: Verilog HDL and VHDL
(VHSIC-HDL: very high speed integrated circuit
HDL). Both are IEEE standards.
– Supported by ASIC and FPGAs synthesis tools

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 Advantages of HDLs
• Designs can be described at a very abstract level.
– Mapping technology independent description
• Logic synthesis tools can be used to optimize the
circuit and to map to a specific technology.
• Functional verification can be done early in the
design cycle.
– Cuts down the design cycle time
• HDLs are convenient way of integrating the
intellectual property (IP) from a variety of sources
in a proprietary design.

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 Suggested Readings
• Wayne Wolf, FPGA-Based System Design,
Pearson
• FPGAs: Instant Access, Chapter 1
• Pong. P. Chu, FPGA Prototyping by Verilog

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