Applications of TORC: An Open Toolkit for Reconfigurable Computing

Abstract

Two research projects are proposed that rely on Tools for open Reconfigurable Computing (TORC) and the openness of the Xilinx tool chain. The first project, the Embedded FPGA Transmitter, relies on the ability to add arbitrary routes to a physical FPGA which serve no obvious purpose. These routes can then mimic an antenna and transmit directly from the FPGA. This mechanism is not supported utilizing standard hardware description languages; however, the Embedded FPGA Transmitter requires measurements on a real FPGA to determine success. The second project is a back-end tools accelerator designed to reduce the compilation time for FPGA times. As the complexity of FPGAs have exceeded over a million logic cells, the compilation problem size has greatly expanded. The open-source project, TORC, provides an excellent framework for new FPGA research that provides physical, real-world results to ensure the applicability of the research.