KNIFE: A low-cost Reconfigurable system

Abstract

This paper presents Knife, a reconfigurable Multi-FPGA based system designed and implemented as a final project to get a degree on electronic engineering. The whole circuit design flow is addressed in order to obtain an automated process. It starts from a hardware description language design specification in VHDL or XNF and targets at a reconfigurable–expandable board, made up of eight Xilinx FPGAs. We have designed and implemented both, the Multi-FPGA board and the software tool. The software tool employs some Xilinx Foundation tools hile other steps, such as partitioning and placement of the circuit, uses some ideas proposed in previous papers.