DSP/FPGA co-processing demos 20X acceleration using SW-to-HW design flow

The folks at Impulse Accelerated Technologies and 3L Limited have announced a technology bridge allowing DSP application developers to create accelerated algorithms for high-performance embedded systems, using software development methods for both DSP and FPGA devices.

To verify this capability 3L engineers accelerated signal correlation logic using the 3L Diamond and Impulse CoDeveloper tools. The physical target is a Sundance Multiprocessor Technology Ltd. board combining a Texas Instruments C6416T DSP processor, a Xilinx FPGA used as a co-processor, and 256 Mbytes of SDRAM. They achieved 20X acceleration over the DSP software-only version by partitioning the algorithm over the two processing elements. Impulse C automatically created the required low-level hardware descriptions.

The 3L Diamond software provided high-performance multiprocessing and design partitioning. This approach is common in applications where multiple processing elements including DSPs, FPGAs and standard processors are combined for power/performance balancing.

Impulse CoDeveloper was the compiler tool set that allowed the C-language applications to be quickly refactored to the FPGA platform. A methodology typically used for embedded systems, signal processing, and high performance computing. The Impulse C-to-FPGA compiler generates hardware outputs compatible with the 3L Diamond and other multiprocessing tools.

This solution represents an extension of standard software development tools for DSPs and standard processors, which usually address systems with only one processor. 3L Diamond provides a method of designing and debugging large, complex applications with many distinct processors. In this solution, the Impulse CoDeveloper tools simplify the creation of, and partitioning to FPGA of, hardware modules and processor peripherals from C-language descriptions.

Availability
Impulse CoDeveloper and 3L Diamond are available now, and the integration add-on between the tools is available at no charge to Impulse and 3L customers. Perpetual, annual, and floating licenses of the Impulse and 3L tools are available from the respective vendors.