A novel FPGA design framework with VLSI post-routing performance analysis (abstract only)

Abstract

The most widely used open-source field-programmable gate array (FPGA) placement and routing tool is VPR, which can define the target FPGA, perform placement and routing, and report area and timing information. However, it cannot be used in FPGA IP design efficiently for two reasons. First, for most newly developed FPGA architectures, VPR cannot support them directly. Modifying the C-coded VPR for using it to evaluate a number of new architectures requires a long time. Second, the accuracy of the VPR performance results is not enough for the evaluation of a complete synthesizable FPGA IP in the design that targets the productions of LSI. We propose a FPGA design framework that in particular improves FPGA IP design efficiency. A novel FPGA routing tool is developed in this framework, namely EasyRouter. EasyRouter is developed using the C# language. When an object-oriented programming method is used, the source codes are fewer and easier manage compared to VPR, which shortens the development time. By using simple HDL templates, EasyRouter can automatically generate entire chip HDL codes and the configuration bitstream. With these files, the FPGA IP can be evaluated with commercial VLSI CADs with high accuracy and reliability.