Online Monitoring and Remote FPGA Configuration Using JTAG Over Ethernet

Abstract

JTAG interface of FPGA devices can be used as a low-footprint general-purpose communication port, providing powerful and flexible test and debug capability to a design. A JTAG micro-controller based on off-the-shelf components and free software is designed and tested. It provides fast configuration of long FPGA chains over ethernet at 500 kgates/s, it supports most of the common file formats. It can be used for slow control monitoring (100 kb/s) and moderate data taking (2 MByte/s).