<title>DSP filters in FPGAs for image processing applications</title>

Abstract

Real-time video-rate image processing requires orders of magnitude performance beyond the capabilities of general purpose computers. ASICs deliver the required performance, however they have the drawback of fixed functionality. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are reprogrammable SRAM based ICs capable of real-time image processing. FPGAs deliver the benefits of hardware execution speeds and software programmability. An FPGA program creates a custom data processor, which executes the equivalent of hundreds to thousands of lines of C code on the same clock tick. FPGAs emulate circuits which are normally built as ASICs. Multiple real-time video streams can be processed in Giga Operations' Spectrum Reconfigurable Computing (RC) Platform^TM. The Virtual Bus Architecture^TM enables the same hardware to be configured into many image processing architectures, including 32-bit pipelines, global busses, rings, and systolic arrays. This allows an efficient mapping of data flows and memory access for many image processing applications and the implementation of many real-time DSP filters, including convolutions, morphological operators, and recoloring and resampling algorithms. FPGAs provide significant price/performance benefits versus ASICs where time to market, cost to market, and technical risk are issues. And FPGA descriptions migrate efficiently and easily into ASICs for downstream cost reduction.