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First, Make a Roux
Beyond Basic FPGA Configuration
If you own a Cajun cookbook, you may have noticed that virtually every recipe begins with this step. If you can’t make a Roux, you can’t cook Cajun. The recipe for Roux (if you can find one) is always fairly vague – “Put some flour and oil in a pot and heat until the color changes to brown.” How much flour? How much oil? How much heat? What shade of brown? All of these questions are, as we learned in engineering school, “left as an exercise for the student.” Of course, if you make your Roux badly, you are creating a dish that is crippled from the start. Caveat Cook.
Designing with FPGAs works a bit like that. Here in the techno-editorial world, we simply state that you’ll need “some configuration logic” attached to your device before you go off enjoying whatever wonderful new feature we’re about to disclose in our article. What kind of configuration logic? You know – throw some flash and a JTAG thingy into a pot, maybe a CPLD or two, heat until it turns brown, and there ya’ go. Now, let’s talk about those new 18X18 multipliers… [more]
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