NetFPGA--An Open Platform for Gigabit-Rate Network Switching and Routing

The NetFPGA platform enables students and researchers to build high-performance networking systems in hardware. A new version of the NetFPGA platform has been developed and is available for use by the academic community. The NetFPGA 2.1 platform now has interfaces that can be parameterized, therefore enabling development of modular hardware designs with varied word sizes. It also includes more logic and faster memory than the previous platform. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) logic is used to implement the core data processing functions while software running on embedded cores within the FPGA and/or programs running on an attached host computer implement only control functions. Reference designs and component libraries have been developed for the CS344 course at Stanford University. Open-source Verilog code is available for download from the project website.