ECE 5211 - Rapid Prototyping with FPGAs

3 Credits (Minimum) 3 Credits (Maximum)

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are an important part of the overall design flow for application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) because they offer the potential of allowing cheap hardware prototypes to be built to meet a narrow window of opportunity. They also offer novel, programmable architectures. This course will focus on the combined use of FPGAs and modern synthesis tools to develop rapid prototypes of ASICs. Architectural and performance tradeoffs and characteristics of both commercial anti-fuse and dynamically programmable FPGAs will be considered. Includes a team project. Prer., ECE 4242/5242. Meets with ECE 4211.