Rapid prototyping is an important step in the development and the verification of computationally demanding tasks of digital communication systems, such as Forward Error Correction (FEC) decoding. The goal is to replace time-consuming simulations based on abstract models of the system with real-time experiments under real-world conditions. GPU-like architecture is a promising approach to fully exploit the potential of FPGA-based acceleration platforms. In this article, an application-specific GPU-like architecture and a complete compilation framework for decoding LDPC codes are proposed. The interest in an application-specific GPU in comparison with current GPUs is detailed. Finally, real-time experimentations demonstrate the potential of the GPU-like decoder to investigate both algorithmic and architectural issues.