Enhanced I/O control flexibility for generating control signals
AssigneeVantis Corporation
InventorsOm P. Agrawal, Bradley A. Sharpe-Geisler, Giap Tran
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Abstract
A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device includes a plurality of input/output blocks (IOBs) and variable grain blocks (VGBs). An inter-connect network provides efficient and flexible routing of control signals from VGBs to IOBs. Control signals may include individual control signals to a predetermined IOB or common control signals to a plurality of IOBs. The inter-connect network includes vertical and horizontal inter-connect channels. The inter-connect channels are coupled to switch boxes having line segments or stubs. The line segments are coupled to an IOB control multiplexer which output control signals to IOBs. The use of stubs allows for efficient and flexible use of interconnect resources.
Claims11
A field programmable gate array (FPGA) device, comprising:
- (a) a plurality of IOBs;
- (b) a first multiplexer, coupled to a first set of IOBs in the plurality of IOBs, for providing a first selected control signal to the first set of IOBs;
- (c) a second multiplexer, coupled to a second set of IOBs in a plurality of IOBs for providing the first selected control signal to the second set of IOBs, wherein the first and the second multiplexers are different;
- (d) a first switch box, coupled to the first multiplexer, having a first line segment;
- (e) a second switch box, coupled to the second multiplexer, having a first line segment;
- and
- (f) a first inter-connect channel, coupled to the first line segments of the first and second switch boxes, for providing a first control signal to the first and second multiplexers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.