Implementing high-speed serial and custom digital protocols thru fpga technology and graphical programming techniques

Digital designs today have become extremely complex as the latest technologies such as DVI and HDTV require the ability to move larger quantities of data than their predecessors. New technologies including faster clock rates and higher throughput buses have enabled designers to switch to serial protocols from older parallel protocols as a way to increase overall data throughput while minimizing the pin-out and footprint of their designs. Engineers are forced to find cost-effective ways to prototype and implement these designs quickly to allow them stay ahead of their competitors and meet aggressive time-to-market deadlines. In this paper, we will discuss strategies to implement high-speed serial protocols for digital communication using the latest commercial PC innovations. We will explore the advantages of field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology as well as PCI Express and PXI Express as a platform to develop a reconfigurable digital interfacing and test platform. We will discuss how engineers can combine these technologies with graphical programming techniques to implement digital protocols such as Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), Aurora, or Digital Visual Interface (DVI) quickly with in-line processing algorithms to meet changing system requirements for today and tomorrow.