Title
Leveraging reconfigurability to raise productivity in FPGA functional debug
Abstract
We propose new hardware and software techniques for FPGA functional debug that leverage the inherent reconfigurability of the FPGA fabric to reduce functional debugging time. The functionality of an FPGA circuit is represented by a programming bitstream that specifies the configuration of the FPGA's internal logic and routing. The proposed methodology allows different sets of design internal signals to be traced solely by changes to the programming bitstream followed by device reconfiguration and hardware execution. Evidently, the advantage of this new methodology vs. existing debug techniques is that it operates without the need of iterative executions of the computationally-intensive design re-synthesis, placement and routing tools. In essence, with a single execution of the synthesis flow, the new approach permits a large number of internal signals to be traced for an arbitrary number of clock cycles using a limited number of external pins. Experimental results using commercial FPGA vendor tools demonstrate productivity (i.e. run-time) improvements of up to 30x vs. a conventional approach to FPGA functional debugging. These results demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1109/DATE.2012.6176481
DATE
Keywords
Field
DocType
leveraging reconfigurability,arbitrary number,fpga fabric,design internal signal,conventional approach,fpga circuit,fpga functional debug,functional debugging,commercial fpga vendor tool,programming bitstream,functional debugging time,field programmable gate array,shift registers,benchmark testing,field programmable gate arrays,fpga,reconfigurable computing,multiprocessor,virtualization,debugging,logic design,multiplexing,parallel computing,difference set
Logic synthesis,Reconfigurability,Computer science,Parallel computing,Field-programmable gate array,FPGA prototype,Real-time computing,Bitstream,Control reconfiguration,Reconfigurable computing,Debugging,Embedded system
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1530-1591
2
0.40
References 
Authors
8
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Zissis Poulos1669.30
Yu-Shen Yang2928.23
Jason H. Anderson3125787.73
A. Veneris493767.52
Bao Le5244.14