FPGA-Based DSP

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) offer an excellent platform for embedded DSP systems when real-time processing beyond that which multiprocessor platforms can achieve is required, and volumes are too small to justify the costs of developing a custom chip. This niche role is due to the ability of FPGA to host custom computing architectures, tailored to the application. Modern FPGAs play host to large quantities of heterogeneous logic, computational and memory components which can only be effectively exploited by heterogeneous processing architectures composed of microprocessors with custom co-processors, parallel software processor and dedicated hardware units. The complexity of these architectures, coupled with the need for frequent regeneration of the implementation with each new application makes FPGA system design a highly complex and unique design problem. The key to success in this process is the ability of the designer to best exploit the FPGA resources in a custom architecture, and the ability of design tools to quickly and efficiently generate these architectures. This chapter describes the state-of-the-art in FPGA device resources, computing architectures, and design tools which support the DSP system design process.