research-article

Rapid Triggering Capability Using an Adaptive Overlay during FPGA Debug

Authors:

Fatemeh Eslami and

Steven J. E. WiltonAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), Volume 23, Issue 6

Article No.: 72, Pages 1 - 25

https://doi.org/10.1145/3241045

Published: 06 December 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology is rapidly gaining traction in a wide range of applications. Nonetheless, FPGAs still require long design and debug cycles. To debug hardware circuits, trace-based instrumentation is inserted into the design that enables capturing data during the circuit execution into on-chip memories for later offline analysis. Since on-chip memories are limited, a trigger circuitry is used to only record data related to specific events during the execution. However, during debugging, a circuit recompilation is required on modifying these instruments. This can be very slow, reducing debug productivity. In this article, we propose a non-intrusive and rapid triggering solution with a tailored overlay fabric and mapping algorithm that seeks to enable fast debug iterations without performing a recompilation. This overlay is specialized for small combinational and sequential circuits with a single output; such circuits are typical of common trigger functions. We present an adaptive strategy to construct the overlay fabric using spare FPGA resources at compile time. At debug time, our proposed trigger mapping algorithms adapt to this specialized overlay to rapidly implement combinational and sequential trigger circuits. Our results show that the overlay fabric can be reconfigured to map different triggering scenarios in less than 40s instead of recompiling the circuit during debug iterations, increasing debug productivity.

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Cited By

Lai YUstun EXiang SFang ZRong HZhang Z(2021)Programming and Synthesis for Software-defined FPGA Acceleration: Status and Future ProspectsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/346966014:4(1-39)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3469660
Murali AKakarla HAnitha Priyadarshini G(2021)Improved design debugging architecture using low power serial communication protocols for signal processing applicationsInternational Journal of Speech Technology10.1007/s10772-020-09784-x24:2(291-302)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10772-020-09784-x

Index Terms

Rapid Triggering Capability Using an Adaptive Overlay during FPGA Debug
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Dependable and fault-tolerant systems and networks
    1. Redundancy
  2. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Volume 23, Issue 6

Special Issue on Internet of Things System Performance, Reliability, and Security

November 2018

288 pages

ISSN:1084-4309

EISSN:1557-7309

DOI:10.1145/3291062

Editor:
Naehyuck Chang
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

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Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 06 December 2018

Accepted: 01 July 2018

Revised: 01 April 2018

Received: 01 August 2017

Published in TODAES Volume 23, Issue 6

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Cited By

Lai YUstun EXiang SFang ZRong HZhang Z(2021)Programming and Synthesis for Software-defined FPGA Acceleration: Status and Future ProspectsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/346966014:4(1-39)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3469660
Murali AKakarla HAnitha Priyadarshini G(2021)Improved design debugging architecture using low power serial communication protocols for signal processing applicationsInternational Journal of Speech Technology10.1007/s10772-020-09784-x24:2(291-302)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10772-020-09784-x

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