Performance Evaluation of MathWorks HDL Coder as a Vendor Independent DFE Generation

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to evaluate MathWorks HDL (Hardware Descriptive Language) Coder and compare the results with designs produced by its vendor dependent counterparts. The focus is mainly on evaluate the design effort needed to close timing and to get optimal resource mapping for a selected design. Different tests were carried out with the designs made in HDL Coder ranging from a small design to a complex digital front end design. Several logic tests were also carried out to understand the efficiency of the hardware produced from HDL Coder. To get our hands on with the tool, a power meter was undertaken as the design under test. Further, a down sampling filter chain was designed in HDL Coder and lastly, a branched filter was designed. Results have been presented for the unoptimized design and the various optimizations tried. An analysis of the different methodologies used is discussed and how the tool can make the design flow more effective. With the time invested in learning and using the tool, an experience of HDL Coder as a HLS (High Level Synthesis)) tool can be analyzed and compared to other HLS tools. In conclusion, it was found out that in the bigger designs HDL Coder did not have a problem meeting the timing requirements for the selected designs and the results are comparable. However, it does not map optimally to the resources on the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) fabric and it was difficult to change the mapping of resources according to constraints. On analysis, the HDL Coder blocks consume a lot of DSP (Digital Signal Processing) slices compared to the vendor dependent counterparts. Though, the tool is faster and easier to learn, work with and many optimization methods can be done automatically by the tool. Additionally, there is no need to run synthesis on a separate vendor cause this can be done by HDL Coder which improves the workflow. Using HDL Coder in a design methodology would increase productivity because of it being vendor independent. Whereas, the performance results can vary depending on design structure.