AN OBJECT ORIENTED FRAMEWORK FOR BITSTREAM GENERATION FOR MULTI-TECHNOLOGY FPGA CHIPS
Kalyan Bemalkhedkar · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2005
Technologies in FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips have rapidly evolved over the past few decades.The architectures of these FPGA chips are constantly evolving.To increase their applicability, newer analog, digital and mixed signal components are been integrated.The software tool chain used to program application specific functionality onto these chips also needs to evolve simultaneously to support these new components and architectures.This software tool chain starts with high level design entry and is completed by the generation of bitstream for programming the chip.In this thesis, we present a novel object oriented framework approach for bitstream generation: XBits.XBits takes in a placed and routed circuit description and generates the bitstream for an FPGA chip whose architecture is specified in our custom Architecture Description File Format.This format allows us to specify varying FPGA architectures and components which can be easily integrated into rest of the framework.This thesis is a result of a joint effort of more than one person.One of the foremost of the people behind my work is Prof. Karen Tomko, my graduate advisor.She has always been the driving force and inspiration for my thesis and without her support and guidance I would not have been able to achieve what I have.Secondly, I would like to extend my thanks to my friend and project partner, Vishal Sapre, for his excellent collaborative effort in the development of "XBits".I have been working with him for the past one and half years and have found him to be an awesome team player, moral