This paper presents some work on using Ethernet for communication in a high-speed FPGA-based simulation system.
Abstract
Recent research has focused on developing communication techniques for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to support real-time, distributed simulation with frame times of a few microseconds or less. It has been demonstrated that very high-speed, efficient, reliable FPGA-FPGA or FPGA-PC inter-model communication can be accomplished with point-to-point Giga-bit Ethernet using the standard UDP and Ethernet protocols. Predictable message timing and reliability required by real-time inter-model communication can be achieved, without introducing the significant overhead usually associated with Ethernet communication and software protocol stacks. This high-speed communication method has been applied to a simulation system with a high-speed simulation of an electric power system converter running in the FPGA communicating with a Virtual Test Bed (VTB) model in a PC, using the VTB for presentation of simulation results.
Download Paper PDF Format ~521 kB