Maximizing the potential of the platform FPGA as a computing and communication machine

Gordon Brebner, Xilinx Research Labs, San Jose, CA - USA

 

Abstract: The Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is noted for providing increasingly large amounts of programmable logic and wiring. This offers the potential for much concurrency, interconnect, and programmability in implementing computing and communication systems and subsystems. Now, the modern platform FPGA adds other programmable elements, such as processors, DSP blocks, memories, etc. into the mix, all embedded into a programmable network on chip. To maximize the potential of this physical technology, new thinking on system architectures and design methodologies is needed, beyond the conventional focus on hardware, software, and hardware-software co-design. This talk will discuss some of the issues involved, illustrated with examples from recent research into high performance networking systems.

About the speaker: Professor Gordon Brebner is a Distinguished Engineer at Xilinx, Inc., the market leader in programmable logic platforms. He works in Xilinx Research Labs in San Jose, California, leading a group researching issues surrounding networked systems of the future. Prior to joining Xilinx in 2002, he was the Professor of Computer Systems at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, and was Director of the Institute for Computing Systems Architecture.