FPGA development platforms are an important part of the software-to-FPGA design process. Impulse is committed to providing broad support for FPGA-enabled third-party development platforms and systems.

C-to-FPGA for FPGA Hardware Generation

Impulse supports all popular FPGA devices, allowing C code to be compiled and optimized to create high performance hardware modules. Hardware module generation is ideal for creating fast prototypes and for using iterative methods of design, and for faster product deployment. Impulse CoDeveloper generates synthesizable VHDL or Verilog, and can also be interfaced to HDL simulators for hardware module validation.

Support for FPGA-Based Platforms

An FPGA platform is a chip-level, board-level or system-level combination of FPGA hardware, embedded or host processor, memories and I/O devices. These platforms are offered by a wide variety of third-party providers and can greatly simplify the creation of hardware/software systems for specific types of applications.

Impulse offers Platform Support Packages (PSPs) that add platform-specific capabilities to the Impulse CoDeveloper programming tools. There are three general categories of PSPs:

Embedded PSPs are not board- or system-specific, and instead are used to create the necessary interconnections to embedded processors such as the Xilinx MicroBlaze and PowerPC, and the Altera Nios II. Using CoDeveloper for embedded processor acceleration allows you to partition your C application between the embedded processor and closely-coupled hardware accelerators, creating a single-chip accelerated application.

Board-level and system-level PSPs add support for specific FPGA-based products. These products are optimized for certain types of applications, such as video processing or high-performance computing. Support for these boards and systems may include Impulse C programming interfaces for data streaming, message passing via signals, external memories and other I/O. Visit the Platform Solutions page to learn more about our FPGA platform partners.

Custom PSPs can be created in support of your own custom hardware. Impulse can create PSPs for custom boards on a Professional Services basis, or we can provide you with the information and source code you need to create your own PSPs.

Professional Services are available to help ensure that your first platform application is completed on time and to your performance specifications. Impulse application experts can work from your legacy microprocessor or DSP algorithm to create a high-performance FPGA implementation. Impulse can also help with library generation for custom IP modules, and can assist with custom platform support. Visit the Custom Solutions page to learn more.

Training and Customized Tutorials are also available to help your team become more productive with FPGAs using software-to-hardware design methods. Visit the Training Solutions page to learn more.