Chapter 3
Languages
In Chapter 2, a low level view of the architecture of FPGAs was presented. To programme an FPGA at this level, it is necessary to break down the design into the fine-grained logic blocks available on the FPGA and build up the logic required by the application from these blocks. There are two main problems with representing designs at this level. Firstly, designing at such a low level is both tedious and error prone. Secondly, the portability would be limited to FPGAs that had the same basic architecture and logic block granularity. While it is possible to programme FPGAs at this level, it is akin to programming a microprocessor in assembly language. It may be appropriate for the parts of the design where the timing and resource use are critical. However, for most applications, this is too low level, and this is also the case for most image processing designs based on FPGAs.
Fortunately, the tools for implementing algorithms and systems on FPGAs enable working at a higher level. Implementing a working design requires several key steps, as illustrated by the generic design flow in Figure 3.1. Firstly, the design must be coded in some human readable form. This represents the design using a hardware description language (HDL) and captures the essential aspects of the design that enables it to be both simulated and synthesised onto an FPGA. Design representation is the primary focus of this chapter. Although many HDLs are based on software languages, they are not ...
