Some design issues in multi-chip FPGA implementation of DSP algorithms

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) provide an innovative and flexible platform to implement and evaluate digital signal processing (DSP) applications. A CAD design methodology which is used to implement DSP algorithms is presented. An introduction is given to the various issues involved in the multi-chip partitioning of large DSP implementations, and approaches towards efficient auto-partitioners are also discussed in detail. The design and implementation of an 8-point 1D discrete cosine transform (DCT) and its inverse (IDCT) on a processor with FPGAs is presented in this paper, as an illustrative example of a typical DSP algorithm. The processor uses 16-bit precision, is implemented on six Xilinx 4000 type FPGAs and operates at 40 MHz.<>