Definition and SIMD Implementation of a Multi-Processing Architecture Approach on FPGA

In a context of high performance, low technology access cost and application code reusability objectives, this paper presents an "architectured FPGA" approach that consists in the definition of a general frame for embedded system application implementations. Addressing image processing as a first application domain, a FPGA architecture implementation based on that approach is presented. Built around SIMD architecture, the "Ter@Core" FPGA implementation illustrates the competitiveness of the approach compared to off-the-shelf processors and to usual FPGA approach. The presented implementation gathers 128 processing elements on a single FPGA providing 19.2 GOPS performance and very high application development productivity.