A testbench design method suitable for FPGA-based prototyping of reactive systems

Abstract

As reactive systems are growing more and more complex, costs stemming from a misconception in early design phases like requirements analysis and system specification show a tendency to explode. This makes rapid prototyping inevitable for extensive simulation in early design phases. In this article, we investigate into the usability of field programmable logic for designing a “real-world” testbench suitable for simulating the environment of a prototype. We present a top-down design method which significantly reduces effort, especially when FPGAs are also used as implementation technology for the system prototype.