HIBI-based multiprocessor SoC on FPGA

An FPGA offers an excellent platform for a system-on-chip consisting of intellectual property (IP) blocks. The problem is that IP blocks and their interconnections are often FPGA vendor dependent. Our HIBI (heterogeneous IP block interconnection) network-on-chip (NoC) scheme solves the problem by providing a flexible interconnection network and IP block integration with an open core protocol (OCP) interface. Therefore, IP components can be of any type: processors; hardware accelerators; communication interfaces; memories. As a proof of concept, a multiprocessor system with eight soft processor cores and HIBI is prototyped on FPGA. The whole system uses 36,402 logic elements, 2.9 Mbits of RAM, and operates at 78 MHz frequency on the Altera Stratix 1S40, which is comparable to other FPGA multiprocessors. The most important benefit is significant reduction of the design effort compared to system specific interconnection networks. HIBI also presents the first OCP compliant IP-block integration in FPGA.