Design of the Delft Altera-based Multimedia Platform

Delft University of Technology Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science CE-MS-2003-05 Currently it is envisioned that for numerous industrial applications, a paradigm shift occurs from Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) towards reconfigurable hardware designs. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) constitute means for the implementation of reconfigurable hardware modules. Lately they are integrated together with General Purpose Processor (GPP) cores to address the hardware/software co-design. Design for such systems requires specific skills and methodologies and is often supported by development kits. The existing development kits suffer from two main disadvantages, namely very high cost and insufficient flexibility, both making them unusable for educational and research purposes. Delft Altera-based Multimedia Platform (DAMP) project is intended to address the above disadvantages. DAMP’s main target is the hardware/software co-design for mobile multimedia applications. The Altera ARM-based Excalibur device with 100k or 400k FPGA gates around an ARM922T General Purpose Processor (GPP) is used as the main chip. This selection is due to the popularity of the ARM processor in a variety of embedded systems, some of them targeting the requirements on multimedia applications, e.g., 3G mobile phones and PDAs. In this thesis, the DAMP specification is created as result of requirements and restrictions analysis. A DAMP functional design is presented in the form of a schematic design, consisting of logical representations of the DAMP components and their interconnections. The Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design flow used for DAMP is introduced. In addition, important factors concerning high-speed digital design are discussed. Finally, the DAMP PCB is presented. DAMP: Design of the Delft Altera-based Multimedia Platform