Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD (대한전자공학회논문지SD)

The Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers (대한전자공학회)
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Debugging Problem for Multi-Million Gates FPGAs and the Way to Solve It

초고집적 FPGA디버깅의 문제점 및 해결책

  • Yang, Se-Yang (Dept.of Electronics Electric Information Computer Engineering, Busan National University)
  • 양세양 (부산대학교 전자전기정보 컴퓨터공학부)
  • Published : 2002.04.01
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Abstract

As today's field programmable gate arrays have very large logic capacity as well as relatively fast operation speed, they're widely used in many application areas. However, debugging the design implemented in FPGA's is very time-consuming and painful as the internal signal probing usually requires large number of FPGA re-compilations, which take tremendously long time. In this paper, we analyze the problems in FPGA debugging and propose a new powerful debugging solution. With the proposed FPGA debugging solution, we can guarantee not only to provide 100% internal signal visibility without FPGA re-compilation for the design in FPGA's, but also to identify at least one design bug per FPGA compilation. An experimental result has clearly shown the proposed approach to FPGA debugging very powerful and practical.

최근의 FPGA는 매우 높은 집적도와 빠른 동작속도 때문에 많은 응용분야에서 널리 사용되고 있다. 그러나, FPGA에 구현된 설계를 디버깅하는 과정은, FPGA의 내부에 존재하는 수많은 신호선들을 탐침하는 과정이 매우 오랜 시간을 요하는 FPGA 재-컴파일을 최소 수 차례 이상 필요로 함으로서 많은 문제점을 가지고 있다. 본 논문에서는, 이와 같은 FPGA 디버깅의 문제점을 분석하고, 새로운 디버깅 방법을 제안한다. 제안되는 방법은 FPGA 내부에 존재1차는 모든 신호선들에 대한 100% 탐침을 한 차례의 FPGA 재-컴파일과정 없이도 수행하는 것을 가능하게 할 뿐만 아니라, 한번의 FPGA 컴파일 과정으로 최소 한 개의 설계 오류를 찾을 수 있도록 한다. 본 논문에서 제안된 방법은 실험을 통하여서도 매우 효과적이며 실용적임이 확인되었다.

Keywords

References

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