Les systèmes de communications sans fil n'ont cessé d'évoluer ces dernières années, poussés par de fortes demandes du marché en systèmes toujours plus autonomes et performants. Ainsi, de nouvelles contraintes de conception sont apparues de manière à mieux prendre en compte les aspects énergétiques et ainsi améliorer la durée de vie des batteries et des circuits. Actuellement, les systèmes de communications numériques sans fil consomment d'importantes quantités d'énergie. D'autre part, la complexité des systèmes croît de génération en génération afin de satisfaire toujours plus d'utilisateurs avec un haut niveau de performances. Dans ce contexte à fortes contraintes, les circuits de type FPGA apparaissent comme une technologie attractive, pouvant supporter des circuits numériques complexes grâce à leur grand nombre de ressources. Pour pouvoir concevoir les futurs systèmes de communications numériques sans fil sur ce type de circuit, les concepteurs de tels systèmes doivent pouvoir estimer la consommation et les performances au plus tôt dans la phase de conception. De cette façon, ils pourront explorer l'espace de conception et effectuer des choix d'implémentation afin d'optimiser leurs systèmes. Durant cette thèse, une méthodologie a été proposée dont les objectifs sont d'estimer rapidement et à haut niveau la consommation de leurs circuits implantés sur FPGA ainsi que leurs performances, d'explorer l'espace de conception, de comparer efficacement plusieurs systèmes entre eux, tout en assurant une bonne précision de l'estimation. La méthodologie repose sur une phase de caractérisation de composants IP matériels ainsi que de leur modélisation en Systeme. Dans un second temps, une représentation haut-niveau du système entier est réalisée à partir de la librairie des modèles Systeme de chaque IP. A travers des simulations haut-niveau, les utilisateurs peuvent tester rapidement de multiples configurations de leur système. Un des caractères innovants de l'approche repose sur l'utilisation de signaux clés qui permettent de tenir compte des comportements dynamiques des composants IP, c-à-d leur temps d'activité (actif/inactif), au sein du système et ainsi obtenir des estimations précises. Les nombreux gains de la méthodologie ont été démontrés à travers plusieurs exemples de systèmes de communications numériques sans fil comme une chaîne de traitement en bande de base de type SISO-OFDM générique, des émetteurs LTE etc. Pour conclure, les limitations ont été adressées et des solutions d'optimisation ont pu être envisagées puis mises en place. / Wireless communication systems are still evolving since the last decades, driven by the growing demand of the electronic market for energy efficient and high performance devices. Thereby, new design constraints have appeared that aim at taking into account power consumption in order to improve battery-life of circuits. Current wireless communication systems commonly dissipate a lot of power. On the other hand, the complexity of such systems keeps on increasing through the generations to always satisfy more users at a high degree of performance. In this highly constrained context, FPGA devices seem to be an attractive technology, able to support complex systems thanks to their important number of resources. According to the FPGA nature, designers need to estimate the power consumption and the performance of their wireless communication systems as soon as possible in the design flow. In this way, they will be able to perform efficient design space exploration and make decisive implementation and optimization choices. Throughout this thesis, a power estimation methodology for hardware-focused FPGA device is described and aims at making design space exploration a lot easier, providing early and fast power and performance estimation at high-level. It also proposes an efficient way to efficiently compare several systems. The methodology is effective through an lP characterisation step and the development of their SystemC models. Then, a high level description of the entire system is realized from the SystemC models that have been previously developed. High-level simulations enable to check the functionality and evaluate the power and performance of the system. One of the contributions consists in monitoring the JP time-activities during the simulation. We show that this has an important impact on both power and performances. The effectiveness of the methodology has been demonstrated throughout several baseband processing chains of the wireless communication domain such as a SISO-OFDM generic chain, LTE transmitters etc. To conclude, the main limitations of the proposed methodology have been investigated and addressed.

FPGA clock frequencies are slow enough that only a fraction of the interconnect’s bandwidth is used. By exploiting this bandwidth, the transfer of large amounts of data can be greatly accelerated. Alternatively, it may also be possible to save area on fixed-bandwidth links by using on-chip serial signaling. For datapath-intensive designs which operate on words instead of bits, this can reduce wiring congestion as well. This thesis proposes relatively simple circuit-level modifications to FPGA interconnect to enable high-bandwidth communication. High-level area estimates indicate a potential interconnect area savings of 10 to 60% when serial links are used. Two interconnect pipelining techniques, wave pipelining and surfing, are adapted to FPGAs and compared against each other and against regular FPGA interconnect in terms of throughput, reliability, area, power, and latency. Source-synchronous signaling is used to achieve high data rates with simple receiver design. Statistical models for high-frequency power supply noise are developed and used to estimate the probability of error of wave pipelined and surfing links as a function of link length and operating speed. Surfing is generally found to be more reliable and less sensitive to noise than wave pipelining. Simulation results in a 65nm process demonstrate a throughput of 3Gbps per wire across a 50-stage, 25mm link. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

The effectiveness of implementing field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) in communication, military, space and high radiation environment applications, coupled with the increased accessibility of private individuals and researchers to launch satellites, has led to an increased interest in commercial off the shelf components. The metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) structures of FPGAs however, are sensitive to radiation effects which can lead to decreased reliability of the device. In order to successfully implement a FPGA based system in a radiation environment, such as on-board a satellite, the single event upset (SEU) and total ionizing dose (TID) characteristics of the device must first be established. This research experimentally determines a research procedure which could accurately determine the SEU cross sections and TID characteristics of various mitigation techniques as well as control circuits implemented in a ProASIC3 A3P1000 FPGA. To gain an understanding of the SEU effects of the implemented circuits, the test FPGA was irradiated by a 66MeV proton beam at the iTemba LABS facility. Through means of irradiation, the SEU cross section of various communication, motor control and mitigation schemes circuits, induced by high energy proton strikes was investigated. The implementation of a full global triple modular redundancy (TMR) and a combination of TMR and a AND-OR multiplexer filter was found to most effectively mitigate SEUs in comparison to the other techniques. When comparing the communication and motor control circuits, the high frequency I2C and SPI circuits experienced a higher number of upsets when compared to a low frequency servo motor control circuit. To gain a better understanding of the absorbed dose effects, experimental TID testing was conducted by irradiating the test FPGA with a cobalt-60 (Co-60) source. An accumulated absorbed dose resulted in the fluctuation of the device supply current and operating voltages as well as resulted in output errors. The TMR and TMR filtering combination mitigation techniques again were found to be the most effective methods of mitigation.

This research investigates three solutions to overcoming portability and scalability concerns in the Evolutionary Hardware (EHW) field. Firstly, the study explores if the V-FPGA—a new, portable Virtual-Reconfigurable-Circuit architecture—is a practical and viable evolution platform. Secondly, the research looks into two possible ways of making EHW systems more scalable: by optimising the system’s genetic algorithm; and by decomposing the solution circuit into smaller, evolvable sub-circuits or modules. GA optimisation is done is by: omitting a canonical GA’s crossover operator (i.e. by using an algorithm); applying evolution constraints; and optimising the fitness function. The circuit decomposition is done in order to demonstrate modular evolution. Three two-bit multiplier circuits and two sub-circuits of a simple, but real-world control circuit are evolved. The results show that the evolved multiplier circuits, when compared to a conventional multiplier, are either equal or more efficient. All the evolved circuits improve two of the four critical paths, and all are unique. Thus, it is experimentally shown that the V-FPGA is a viable hardware-platform on which hardware evolution can be implemented; and how hardware evolution is able to synthesise novel, optimised versions of conventional circuits. By comparing the and canonical GAs, the results verify that optimised GAs can find solutions quicker, and with fewer attempts. Part of the optimisation also includes a comprehensive critical-path analysis, where the findings show that the identification of dependent critical paths is vital in enhancing a GA’s efficiency. Finally, by demonstrating the modular evolution of a finite-state machine’s control circuit, it is found that although the control circuit as a whole makes use of more than double the available hardware resources on the V-FPGA and is therefore not evolvable, the evolution of each state’s sub-circuit is possible. Thus, modular evolution is shown to be a successful tool when dealing with scalability.

In recent years, Light-emitting Diodes (LEDs) have become a promising candidate for backlighting Liquid Crystal Displays [1] (LCDs). Compared with traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) technology, LEDs offer not only better visual quality, but also improved power efficiency. However, to fully utilized LEDs' capability requires dynamic independent control of individual LEDs, which remains as a challenging topic. A FPGA-based hardware system for LED backlight control is proposed in this work. We successfully achieve dynamic adjustment of any individual LED's intensity in each of the three color channels (Red, Green and Blue), in response to a real time incoming video stream. In computing LED intensity, four video content processing algorithms have been implemented and tested, including averaging, histogram equalization, LED zone pattern change detection and non-linear mapping. We also construct two versions of the system. The first employs an embedded processor which performs the above-mentioned algorithms on pre-processed video data; the second embodies the same functionality as the first on fixed hardware logic for better performance and power efficiency. The system servers as the backbone of a consolidated display, which yields better visual quality than common commercial displays, we build in collaboration with a group of researchers from CREOL at UCF.

Turbo codes are a recently discovered class of error correction codes that achieve near-Shannon limit performance. Because of their complexity and highly parallel nature, turbo-coded applications are well suited for configurable computing. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are the main building blocks of configurable computing machines (CCMs), allow users to design flexible hardware that is optimized for performance, speed, power consumption, and chip-area. This thesis presents the implementation and performance of an improved turbo decoder on a configurable computing platform. The design's performance and throughput are emphasized in light of its algorithmic improvements, and its flexibility is emphasized as it is ported to a newer, more efficient architecture with more hardware resources. Because this decoder will eventually become the error correction component of a software radio, the design must maintain a high data rate, interface easily with other modules, and conserve hardware resources for future research developments. / Master of Science

No description available.

Network processors are becoming a predominant feature in the field of network hardware. As new network protocols emerge and data speeds increase, contemporary general-purpose network processors are entering their second generation and academic research is being actively conducted into new techniques for the design and implementation of these systems. At the same time, systems ranging from secured military communications equipment to consumer devices are being updated to provide network connectivity. Many of these devices require, or would benefit from, the inclusion of device security in addition to data security. Whether it is a top-secret encryption scheme that must be concealed or a personal device that needs protection against unauthorized use, security of the device itself is becoming an important factor in system design. Unfortunately, current network processor solutions were not developed with device security in mind. A secure adaptive network processor can provide the means to fill this gap while continuing to provide full support for emerging communication protocols. This dissertation describes the concept and structure of one such device. Analysis of the hardware security provided by the proposed device is provided to highlight strengths and weaknesses, while a prototype system is developed to allow it to be embedded into practical applications for investigation. Two such applications are developed, using the device to provide support for both a secure network edge device and a user-adaptable network gateway. Results of these experiments indicate that the proposed device is useful both as a hardware security measure and as a basis for user adaptation of information-handling systems. / Ph. D.

The ability of some configurable logic devices to modify their hardware during operation has long held great potential to increase performance and reduce device cost. However, despite many research projects and a decade of research, the dynamic reconfiguration of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is still very much an art practiced by few. Previous attempts to automate the many low-level details that complicate Run-Time Reconfigurable (RTR) application development suffer severe limitations. This dissertation describes a comprehensive approach to dynamic hardware development, providing a designer with appropriate models for computation, communication, and reconfiguration integrated with a high-level design environment. In this way, many manual and time consuming tasks associated with partial reconfiguration are hidden, permitting a designer to focus instead on a design's behavior. This design and implementation environment has been validated on a variety of relevant applications, quantifying the effects of high-level design. / Ph. D.

This dissertation research explores a reconfigurable hardware-based parallel simulation mechanism that can dramatically improve the speed of simulating the operations of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Here reconfigurable hardware-based simulation refers to running simulation on a reconfigurable hardware platform, realized by Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The hardware model, also called simulator, is specifically designed for mimicking a small desktop FMS. It is composed of several micro-emulators, which are capable of mimicking operations of equipment in FMS, such as machine centers, transporters, and load/unload stations. To design possible architectures for the simulator, a mapping technology is applied using the physical layout information of an FMS. Under such a mapping method, the simulation model is decomposed into a cluster of micro emulators on the board where each machine center is represented by one micro emulator. To exploit the advantage of massive parallelism, a kind of star network architecture is proposed, with the robot sitting at the center. As a pilot effort, a prototype simulator has been successfully built. A new simulation modeling technology named synchronous real-time simulation (SRS) is proposed. Instead of running conventional programs on a microprocessor, this new technology adopts several concepts from electronic area, such as using electronic signals to mimic the behavior of entities and using specifically designed circuits to mimic system resources. Besides, a time-scaling simulation method is employed. The method uses an on-board global clock to synchronize all activities performed on different emulators, and by this way tremendous overhead on synchronization can be avoided. Experiments on the prototype simulator demonstrate the validity of the new modeling technology, and also show that tremendous speedup compared to conventional software-based simulation methods can be achieved. / Ph. D.