NETFPGA Platform Introduction

Introduction

NETFPGAis a low-power development platform, as the network hardware teaching and routing design tools. NETFPGAIt is convenient for researchers or college students to build a high-speed, hardware-accelerated network system. Originated in North America and was initially used by Stanford University in classroom teaching.Project. NETFPGAputFPGAconfigurable features into network communications, providing an open platform for more researchers to study next-generation networks. More and more people are beginning to pay attention toNETFPGAand a lot of people are involved in theNETFPGAof open source projects.

NETFPGAThe Parameters

NETFPGAPlatform (1) contains aXilinx Virtex-2 Proof theFPGA, run in125MHzthe design of the user-defined logic under the clock frequency, and also includes theXilinx spartan-ii FPGA, runPCIThe control logic of the interface controller for communication with the main processor. Two x2.25MBthe externalSDRAMand the extended64MBof theDDR SDRAMmake data storage media. The platform also provides four Gigabit Ethernet interfaces to match theFPGAfour Gigabit Ethernet controllers in the soft core. NETFPGAIt also contains a total of twoSATAconnectors, making multiple in one systemNETFPGADirect data exchange without the need toPCIBus.

Figure 1. hardware composition of NETFPGA

Key Resources on the board:

used in logical design Xilinx Virtex-2 Pro FPGA

used to PCI of the main interface Xilinx Spartan

2*2.25MB ZBT SRAM

64MB DDR2 DRAM

on the physical layer 4 a Gigabit Ethernet port

Development Environment

NETFPGA The system architecture ( 2 shown below). In the process of research and development, mainly includes the design of hardware layer (FPGA Logic layer design) and software layer development (corresponding to the hardware layer of the driver Development and application development).

hardware

purchased host (the higher the configuration, the better), notice that the motherboard needs to leave a pci-e for the network card use, so choose the motherboard when the best choice of integrated graphics.

Figure 2. NETFPGA 's system framework

software

recommended by the operating system isCentOS 4.4,CentOS 4.5 CentOS 5.1; The user needs toXilinxof theFPGATo be configured, so you need to installise9.1isoftware, and relatedFPGAthe tools, such asModelsim(FPGAlogic Simulation),Chipscope(on-chip logic analysis). Also need to installNETFPGA Base Packagebefore installation, you will need toJavaand theRpmforge Yumsupport for the toolkit. You need to be aware of the issue of the version of each software that is installed because there is a big dependency on each other.

Open Source Projects

in the http://www.netfpga.org/ can find some open source projects, listed as follows:

1. NetFlow Probe
2. Hardware Accelerated Linux Router
3. NETFPGA Ethernet Switch
4. Quad-port Gigabit NIC
5. NETFPGA OpenFlow Switch

There are also several teams in the country to develop and use NETFPGA , in http://www.openhw.org/ can be found on open source projects such as:

1.based onNETFPGAreconfigurable Scientific Computing Platform (Ningxia University)
2.based onNETFPGANetwork traffic Collector (Jinan University)
3.based onNETFPGAdesign and implementation of network processor (Shandong University)
4.based onNETFPGAdesign and implementation of packet filtering firewall (Harbin Engineering University)

from a variety of open source projects, you can see NETFPGA practical application, it is believed to promote the development of the next Generation network.

Note: Recently I am learning and applyingFPGA, inadvertently found on the InternetNETFPGAAlthough this technology has just started,NETFPGAMany of the projects are open source, suitable for university students, teachers, researchers to develop research, I believe in the near future will certainly bring more surprises. In ChinaNETFPGAhas also aroused a lot of university, the company's interest, such as Beijing Jiaotong University, Huawei, but is still in the initial stage, so theNETFPGAdo a few simple introductions. For a detailed development guide, see the reference document1.

References

1. NETFPGA Open Source official website http://netfpga.org/static/guide.html#Install_Software

2. Exploration of NETFPGA development,http://www.eefocus.com/myspace/blog/show_155829.html

3. Open Source Hardware Community http://www.openhw.org/activity/opproject/

NETFPGA Platform Introduction