A high-performance, easy-to-deploy system for desktop FPGA prototyping

• High performance
• Best-in-class modularity
• Timely support for new FPGAs
• The most compact prototyping system
• Quick implementation and ease of use

The Veloce™ proFPGA system architecture provides best-in-class modularity, scalability, flexibility and portability to meet the verification requirements of today's hardware and software engineers. Veloce is part of the Xcelerator™ portfolio, a comprehensive and integrated suite of software and services from Siemens Digital Industries Software.

The Veloce proFPGA platform offers three types of motherboards: Uno, Duo and Quad. These motherboards enable easy connection of different types of FPGA modules, as well as peripheral memory and interface cards. As an example of usage, an engineer may start with a proFPGA Uno system for developing an IP or subsystem-on-chip (SoC) and use it to build a complete SoC and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). This is achieved by simply plugging the same Veloce proFPGA modules from Uno into a Duo or Quad motherboard, regardless of the type of FPGA used in the new systems.

This innovative and intelligent blending technology provides maximum reusability and maximum ROI because the new Veloce proFPGA modules are compatible with previous generations of Veloce proFPGAs. The user can reuse all existing proFPGA motherboards, FPGA modules, daughterboards and accessories in combination with the new Veloce proFPGA modules and systems. If more capacity is needed as the system evolves, 14 Veloce proFPGA Quad systems can easily be connected to scale to an even larger system with capacity well beyond a billion pins.

Capabilities

Verification environment

The scalability, modularity and flexibility of the Veloce proFPGA allows users to extend the prototype verification capabilities by adding expansion boards for memory simulation and hardware interfaces to the external system.

Almost all I/O is available on a large number of expansion modules that are used for high-speed connections between the FPGA and the FPGA, or for connecting expansion boards, such as memory, protocol interfaces and application-specific boards. This allows the user to customize the Veloce proFPGA system according to design verification requirements and easily upgrade the system if needed.

This architectural approach provides maximum flexibility and IP capacity for on-chip connectivity and adaptability of proFPGA daughter boards for PCIe Gen3/4/5 DDR4 memory, USB3, QSFP+, MIPI, HDMI, SATA, Gigabit Ethernet, debug interfaces or expansion boards that are specific to the user's application.

Secure software solution

The same process that speeds up the setup of the Veloce Strato+ emulation platform and the Veloce Primo enterprise prototype is now offered to engineers as an option to speed up the commissioning of the Veloce proFPGA desktop prototype. Veloce OS for Veloce Prototyping Software (VPS) is a complete, automated software solution that eliminates tedious procedures to ensure proper functionality with the fastest possible FPGA prototyping speed.

In addition to the synthesis process, the software ensures that the clock tree is properly placed on the reconfigurable FPGA logic, the clock is properly transferred, timing risks are eliminated, memory is automatically defined and placed on the available physical memory in the system, and timing constraints are met to maximize performance without compromising timing parameters in the circuit under test. Splitting the design into multiple FPGAs takes into account the timing and efficient use of resources, with the user in control of resource and performance trade-off decisions. The user can create as many or as few parts as necessary to achieve a given runtime performance. The FPGA's resource allocation ensures high quality of results (QoR) by allowing individual FPGA projects or logic units within a single FPGA to achieve 150+ MHz performance.

Extended debugging capability

VPS provides industry-leading debugging capabilities for prototypes, regardless of environment or prototype usage model. In on-chip verification (ICE) environments, VPS provides extensive and deep debugging at stylus speed. Tens of thousands of signals in the clock domain can be processed at compile time with a choice of trace sets, conditional capture, triggering conditions and run-time events. Many seconds of execution time can be captured by streaming data to memory or disk without the need for additional hardware setup and configuration.

Capture

Veloce proFPGA significantly lowers the barrier of implementing a desktop FPGA prototyping solution. Combined with the performance that can be achieved through architectural innovation, the solution is easy to deploy and engineers can now deploy it quickly and efficiently in their own lab environments.

The Veloce proFPGA is based on the latest high-performance FPGAs from Xilinx and Intel. It has been designed to deliver high performance and the choice of a 'one FPGA per module' architecture approach. It provides the modularity needed to scale up as needed and also provides enough I/O ports to connect the interface cards needed to create an application-specific verification workload.

The flexibility of the Veloce proFPGA allows the user to use the desktop prototype within different types of workloads, with built-in tests and on-chip connections to external hardware in the form of Ethernet generators or PCI Express buses. The Veloce proFPGA desktop prototyping solution uses the same software frontend as the other solutions in the Veloce hardware verification system to transfer the design under test to the prototype, ensuring continuity of methodology.