A Ruby-Based Hardware/Software Co-Design Environment with Functional Reactive Programming: Mulvery

Abstract

Computation methods using custom circuits are frequently employed to improve the throughput and power efficiency of computing systems. Hardware development, however, can incur significant development costs because designs at the register-transfer level (RTL) with a hardware description language (HDL) are time-consuming. This paper proposes a hardware and software co-design environment, named Mulvery, which is designed for non-professional hardware designer We focus on the similarities between functional reactive programming (FRP) and dataflow in computation. This study provides an idea to design hardware with a dynamic typing language, such as Ruby, using FRP and provides the proofof-concept of the method. Mulvery, which is a hardware and software codesign tool based on our method, reduces development costs. Mulvery exhibited high performance compared with software processing techniques not equipped with hardware knowledge. According to the experiment, the method allows us to design hardware without degradation of performance. The sample application applied a Laplacian filter to an image with a size of 128 × 128 and processed a convolution operation within one clock.

Introduction Hardware Switching Functionality to Web browser-based FPGA Hardware Verification System

“…Also, hardware verification requires various types of peripheral devices. FPGAs, whose contents can be reconfigured many times, are used for prototyping of processing hardware (1,2,3,4) . However, in addition to developing the necessary processing hardware, prototype development using FPGAs requires the development of new hardware interfaces mounted on the FPGA board in order to verify the operation of the FPGA board on the actual product, placing a heavy burden on the developer.…”

Development of Relationship Interface between High-level Synthesis and Web Browser-based Hardware Verification System with Virtual Peripheral

“…FPGAs, whose circuits can be rewritten many times, are used in prototype development of products with embedded systems, such as smartphones and automobiles (1,2,3,4) . However, the following hardware development issues can be identified in prototyping with FPGAs.…”