Fast Prototyping of a New Reconfigurable Architecture : Toward Tailored Space FPGA
Résumé
Virtual prototyping supports fast exploration of design space for new embedded platforms.
Uses of FPGA in critic environment requires to design adapted circuits at the cheapest cost
possible. We then aim at developing a low-cost fault-tolerant FPGA. This work relies on a modular
design flow and embedding custom logic units ranging from medium-to-coarse grained
(e.g. arithmetic units, with dedicated encoding in order to address fault detection). The reconfigurable
unit is modelled in a high level framework that outputs VHDL files to be later taken
as input by commercial framework for implementation. As so, our prototyping environment
supports both virtual prototype simulation and hardware emulation. Besides, it provides a baseline
for manual refinement or modular replacement when going to silicon.