Embedded systems design using FPGA

Summary form only for tutorial. Embedded systems design is a hot application field which merges logic design and processor-based hardware development in a single or few chips solution. Various technologies have been used in the development of embedded systems; microcontroller, DSP processor, ASIC, and now FPGA. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) from Xilinx started as glue logic usage stitching functions together. With the introduction of Virtex-II Pro, Xilinx entered embedded processing area. In this tutorial, we show how Xilinx FPGAs can be used in embedded applications. The strengths of Xilinx FPGAs and the supporting development tools are described. A demonstration is provided to show the ease of design and development of a complete system using Xilinx embedded development kit (EDK) software.