A platform for co-design and co-synthesis based on FPGA

As the number of applications combining hardware and software steadily grows, the need for tools dedicated to co-design and co-synthesis is becoming more and more urgent. In this paper, we describe two platforms designed to prototype this kind of application and to serve as a basis for the development and test of CAD tools. The first platform, called LOPIOM, consists of a microcontroller, four FPGA and four interconnection circuits and can be used to prototype complex systems. The second, LABOMAT, is used as a basic prototyping and teaching platform. The architecture and the software environment developed for these cards is described along with some applications.