FlexWAFE - A High-end Real-Time Stream Processing Library for FPGAs

Digital film processing is characterized by a resolution of at least 2 K (2048times1536 pixels per frame at 30 bit/pixel and 24 pictures/s, data rate of 2.2 Gbit/s); higher resolutions of 4 K (8.8 Gbit/s) and even 8 K (35.2 Gbit/s) are on their way. Real-time processing at this data rate is beyond the scope of today´s standard and DSP processors, and ASICs are not economically viable due to the small market volume. As an answer to these challenges, an FPGA-based approach was followed in the FlexFilm project. The multi-board, multi-FPGA hardware/software architecture is based on Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs which contain the reconfigurable image stream processing data path, large external SDRAM memories for multiple frame storage, and a PCI Express communication backbone network. Different applications are supported on a single hardware platform by using different FPGA configurations. This paper will focus on the FlexWAFE framework, a component library consisting of parameterizable modules for real-time stream processing including memory and communication controllers. Some of the library blocks´ parameters are set at synthesis time via VHDL generics, while others are run-time configurable. This combination allows some flexibility without sacrificing FPGA area or speed.