Idea Hunt, FPGA + ARM Cortex-M3

S

Shanjit Singh

Guest
I aim to demonstrate the need for FPGAs as compared to MPUs like (e.g. ARM Cortex-M3 based from TI/ST) in doing processing intensive stuff. I am looking for some help in this regard. I want to show that a design based on MPUs + FPGA will be more faster (feasible?).

The following is what i have come up with till now,

Comparing N-Point FFTs
Compare designs based on Cordic
Huge Calculations based on Fixed/Floating points Systems. (ALU Design)
Are there more novel applications where the FPGA + MPU design achieves much more than a single MPU ? It would be great to have some stuff pointed at. Happy to read as always :) Thanks.
 
On Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:53:33 -0800, Shanjit Singh wrote:

I aim to demonstrate the need for FPGAs as compared to MPUs like (e.g.
ARM Cortex-M3 based from TI/ST) in doing processing intensive stuff. I
am looking for some help in this regard. I want to show that a design
based on MPUs + FPGA will be more faster (feasible?).

The following is what i have come up with till now,

Comparing N-Point FFTs Compare designs based on Cordic Huge Calculations
based on Fixed/Floating points Systems. (ALU Design)
Are there more novel applications where the FPGA + MPU design achieves
much more than a single MPU ? It would be great to have some stuff
pointed at. Happy to read as always :) Thanks.
Well, if there wasn't a need for such things, then there wouldn't be a
market for FPGAs, now would there?

My work experience with FPGA + CPU designs is that they tend to
complicate the project management, because you need more good people all
at the same time.

As an example, given a microcontroller that has a rich enough timer
feature set, you can do a motor controller board with a good software
engineer and a good analog circuit designer, with maybe some mutual
puzzlement around the edges.

Go to do some FPGA-based video processing, and you need a good software
guy, a good analog guy, and a good FPGA guy. Depending on how easy it is
to schedule people in advance at your company, getting one expert from
each of three disciplines can easily be more than twice as hard as
getting one expert each from two.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com
 
On Sunday, February 10, 2013 3:53:33 AM UTC+13, Shanjit Singh wrote:
I aim to demonstrate the need for FPGAs as compared to MPUs like (e.g. ARM Cortex-M3 based from TI/ST) in doing processing intensive stuff. I am looking for some help in this regard. I want to show that a design based on MPUs + FPGA will be more faster (feasible?).



The following is what i have come up with till now,

Comparing N-Point FFTs
Compare designs based on Cordic
Huge Calculations based on Fixed/Floating points Systems. (ALU Design)
Are there more novel applications where the FPGA + MPU design achieves much more than a single MPU ? It would be great to have some stuff pointed at.. Happy to read as always :) Thanks.
You have missed IO response time issues.
For items like high precision PWN, or fast protection PWM, or other critical real-time IO, sometimes a small state engine done in Logic, runs rings around a SW attempt.
See Cypress & Actel for offerings of Programmable Logic + CPU.
-jg
 
On Feb 9, 4:53 pm, Shanjit Singh <shanjitsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
I aim to demonstrate the need for FPGAs as compared to MPUs like (e.g. ARM Cortex-M3 based from TI/ST) in doing processing intensive stuff. I am looking for some help in this regard. I want to show that a design based on MPUs + FPGA will be more faster (feasible?).

The following is what i have come up with till now,

Comparing N-Point FFTs
Compare designs based on Cordic
Huge Calculations based on Fixed/Floating points Systems. (ALU Design)
Are there more novel applications where the FPGA + MPU design achieves much more than a single MPU ? It would be great to have some stuff pointed at.. Happy to read as always :) Thanks.
For most of the things you mentioned, comparison of tiny ARM Cortex-M3
against modern low end Xilinx/Altera FPGA is not apple-to-apple
comparison.
FPGAs are bigger, more expensive and esp. if you compare against TI
Stellaris-M3S Series, produced on much more advanced silicon process.
As an unfortunate consequence of being produced on more advanced
digital process, Xilinx/Altera FPGAs contain no on-chip NOR flash.

So, it's more relevant to compare FPGAs vs products of similar size/
price/silicon generation, e.g. Analog's Blackfin, TI C5000 or C6000
DSPs or ARM Cortex-R4/ARM Cortex-A5 based microcontrollers from your
favorite manufacturer.
In fact even ARM Cortex-A7 cores are much smaller than FPGAs, but
those tend to be integrated in relatively big SOCs.
 

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