Elements of Architecture of Simulator Realized on NetFPGA10G Card
Marek Michalski · 2022
Simulations in typical software take a long time. To make them faster, it is possible to use hardware acceleration. Some people use graphical processors (GPU) which are faster than typical CPU (Central Processing Unit). Much more faster and more effective is to prepare Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). But it costs a lot of money and also takes time. Nowadays, optimal solution is to use FPGA chips (Field-Programmable Gate Array) which allow to prepare programmable hardware. It is flexible and fast. It requires specific treatment, tool chain for programming and testing, but finally, it gives powerful platform for calculation and data processing. In this paper I will show elements of architecture of system which was composed of 5 NetFPGA cards with 10G interfaces and Virtex 5 onboard (FPGA chip from Xilinx). Primary purpose of such a card is to serve Ethernet/IP network traffic, but, after preparing dedicated design, it is possible to use it as a hardware engine for calculations, ie. simulations.