Methods for producing mappings of logic suitable for FPGA and structured ASIC implementations
AssigneeAltera Corporation
InventorsBruce Pedersen, Jinyong Yuan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Implementation of a logic design in either an FPGA or a structured ASIC is facilitated by designing either type of implementation so that it takes into account the possible need to migrate the design to the other type of implementation. Portions of the design that are being considered for one type of implementation (e.g., FPGA implementation) are assessed for suitability and/or desirability based not only on their suitability/desirability in that one type of implementation, but also based on their suitability/desirability in the other type of implementation (e.g., structured ASIC implementation).
Claims9
A method of selecting portions of a logic design for implementation in an FPGA having a predetermined FPGA architecture so as to facilitate possible conversion of the FPGA implementation to a structured ASIC implementation of said logic design in a structured ASIC having a predetermined structured ASIC architecture, said FPGA architecture employing multiple instances of programmable logic elements, and said structured ASIC architecture employing multiple instances of hard logic elements, each of which has less logic capacity than each of said programmable logic elements, comprising:
- weighting candidate portions of the logic design with weightings that reflect both a first cost of implementing the candidate portion in one of the programmable logic elements and a second cost of implementing the candidate portion in a number of the hard logic elements needed to implement that candidate portion;
- and
- selecting from among the candidate portions finally selected portions of the logic design to be implemented in the FPGA based at least in part on the weightings of the candidate portions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.