Overview
ATLANTiS FrameWork (AFW) provides FPGA board support IP and integration for BittWare’s Altera FPGA-based COTS boards. A library of FPGA components that includes preconfigured physical interfaces, infrastructure, and examples, AFW drastically cuts development time and can be easily integrated into existing FPGA development environments. Working example projects for each supported board, which illustrate how to move data between the board’s different interfaces, along with full simulation and synthesis example projects allow customers to have a board up and running within hours. AFW includes all source code and is provided with our BittWorks II Toolkit.
Physical Interface Components
AFW includes all the physical interface components necessary for providing board-specific external I/O interfaces. In a typical FPGA design, physical interface development can account for the majority of the development time, but using AFW’s pre-configured physical interface components saves months of design effort. The physical interfaces are verified and performance tested and have been configured to meet the specific requirements of each BittWare FPGA-based board. Many of the AFW physical interfaces are Altera IP cores with a component wrapper to configure them for the BittWare board, ensuring that the IP is optimized for both the FPGA and the board.
Optional Component Library
To help further reduce integration time, AFW includes a library of optional components for system, interconnect, and simulation and test. Each component in AFW uses a standard API for communication: the Altera Avalon Streaming and Memory Mapped interfaces. By using a common interface, components become more reusable and portable.
Board I/O and Timing Constraints
AFW includes board-level projects to define all board-specific details for each supported product. These scripts define the resources available to the FPGA for each board, including I/O constraints, device-specific configuration, pin locations, and voltage levels.
Example Projects
Example Quartus projects designed for each board illustrate how to move data between the each of the board’s interfaces. These projects provide a starting point or reference for new development and are complete with a full simulation, proper project setup, simulation and synthesis scripts, complete I/O and timing constraints, and board test software.
ModelSim Simulations
AFW also includes full ModelSim simulations, which include scripted simulation control; standard data generators such as random, sine, cosine, sequence, pattern, file; verification and diagnostic components; and Bus Functional Models (BFM) for each physical interface, including memory models. These simulation resources allow developers to simulate the whole FPGA project, saving the time and cost of developing these resources themselves.
Software Components and Drivers
AFW is tightly integrated with BittWare’s BWIO software library. A collection of device drivers and utilities, BWIO provides control over the ATLANTiS FrameWork. BWIO also allows convenient access to other resources on the target board. It provides this control over both the board and FPGA resources in a way that is multiprocessor and multi-process safe. By allowing complicated operations to be performed with a minimum of operational code, it saves developers even more time by taking care of the sharing of board and FPGA resources between multiple processes.
Example of a System Architecture Featuring AFW
By providing the entire standard infrastructure that supports FPGA development, ATLANTiS FrameWork lets customers focus on developing their unique processing components (application user processing, application user interface, and user development modules) rather than on the infrastructure around it.
AFW Workflow
The diagram below illustrates how ATLANTiS FrameWork fits into the traditional COTS FPGA development process. Items in blue show the steps that are already implemented in AFW. By providing the entire standard infrastructure that supports FPGA development, ATLANTiS FrameWork lets customers focus on developing their unique processing components rather than on the infrastructure around them.
ATLANTiS FrameWork provides proven resources that can reduce FPGA development efforts by months. It includes pre-configured physical interfaces, an extensive component library, and many examples that enable you to get an FPGA project running on your board with minimal effort. It fits into your existing FPGA development process, minimizing risk and eliminating the learning curve of adopting a new methodology. An essential piece to working with the FPGA on BittWare’s FPGA-based boards, AFW is packaged with BittWare’s BittWorks II Toolkit.
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