Signal Processing through Field Programmable Gate Arrays: Prospects and Challenges

The paper focuses on the use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) for signal processing applications. By allowing designers to create circuit architectures developed for the specific applications, high levels of performance can be achieved using FPGA for many digital signal processing (DSP) applications providing considerable improvements over conventional microprocessor and dedicated DSP processor solutions. A key reason is that an FPGA can side step the classic Von Neumann architecture’s instruction—fetch, load/store bottleneck—found in most DSP. The paper highlights the flexibility offered by FPGA in realizing signal processing architectures and algorithms. The possibility of realizing low power signal processors on FPGA by functional transformation approach has also been discussed. The bottlenecks faced in the state of the art technologies have also been explained.