Platform and architecture adequacy in SoC environment: a case study

This work aims to compare several tools and SoC platforms according to the following key parameters: FPGA architecture, coprocessor and accelerator integration, RTOS and HW-SW refinement tools. These key parameters are required to select a flexible and efficient SoC platform (and the associated tools) in order to implement an efficient PACM (processor-accelerator-coprocessor-memory) architecture model. A case study for the PACM architecture model has been targeted in order to validate proposed key parameters. Four platforms were candidate to implement the PACM architecture model. Finally, a Nios development kit (Quartus, SOPC builder and STRATIX device) is used as a prototyping platform for PACM architecture and a shading algorithm for 3D image treatment was implemented as an application to prove the SoC platform adequacy with our PACM architecture model.