Splice: A Standardized Peripheral Logic and Interface Creation Engine

Recent advancements in FPGA technology have allowed manufacturers to place general-purpose processors alongside user-configurable logic gates on a single chip. At first glance, these integrated devices would seem to be the ideal deployment platform for hardware-software co-designed systems, but some issues, such as incompatibility across vendors and confusion over which bus interfaces to support, have impeded adoption of these platforms. This paper describes the design and operation of Splice, a software-based code generation tool designed to address these types of issues by providing a bus-independent structure that allows end-users to integrate their customized peripheral logic easily into embedded systems.