Valery Sklyarov – författare

This book suggests and describes a number of fast parallel circuits for data/vector processing using FPGA-based hardware accelerators. Three primary areas are covered: searching, sorting, and counting in combinational and iterative networks. These include the application of traditional structures that rely on comparators/swappers as well as alternative networks with a variety of core elements such as adders, logical gates, and look-up tables. The iterative technique discussed in the book enables the sequential reuse of relatively large combinational blocks that execute many parallel operations with small propagation delays. For each type of network discussed, the main focus is on the step-by-step development of the architectures proposed from initial concepts to synthesizable hardware description language specifications. Each type of network is taken through several stages, including modeling the desired functionality in software, the retrieval and automatic conversion of key functions, leading to specifications for optimized hardware modules. The resulting specifications are then synthesized, implemented, and tested in FPGAs using commercial design environments and prototyping boards. The methods proposed can be used in a range of data processing applications, including traditional sorting, the extraction of maximum and minimum subsets from large data sets, communication-time data processing, finding frequently occurring items in a set, and Hamming weight/distance counters/comparators. The book is intended to be a valuable support material for university and industrial engineering courses that involve FPGA-based circuit and system design.

The book is composed of two parts. The first part introduces the concepts of the design of digital systems using contemporary field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Various design techniques are discussed and illustrated by examples. The operation and effectiveness of these techniques is demonstrated through experiments that use relatively cheap prototyping boards that are widely available. The book begins with easily understandable introductory sections, continues with commonly used digital circuits, and then gradually extends to more advanced topics. The advanced topics include novel techniques where parallelism is applied extensively. These techniques involve not only core reconfigurable logical elements, but also use embedded blocks such as memories and digital signal processing slices and interactions with general-purpose and application-specific computing systems. Fully synthesizable specifications are provided in a hardware-description language (VHDL) and are ready to be tested and incorporated in engineering designs. A number of practical applications are discussed from areas such as data processing and vector-based computations (e.g. Hamming weight counters/comparators). The second part of the book covers the more theoretical aspects of finite state machine synthesis with the main objective of reducing basic FPGA resources, minimizing delays and achieving greater optimization of circuits and systems.