ASIC design and FPGA design: A unified design methodology applied to different technologies

Abstract

The continuos growth of FPG As capabilities in term of density and performances required the improvement of technology specific knowledge and expertise together with the development of a complete top-down design methodology very similar to the one applied to complex ASIC design. This paper shows that an advanced design methodology allows to obtain high performance designs without losing technology independence. This is in contrast with the general position supported by FPGA vendors suggesting the use of technology specific macrofunction as preferred way to exploit programmable architectures.