FPGA technology supports software-defined radio waveform reuse

PrismTech in Anaheim, Calif., unveiled an FPGA middleware technology called Spectra ICO (Integrated Circuit Object Request Broker) that shows how a CORBA ORB can be embedded natively in an FPGA and used to control logic within the FPGA. The Spectra ICO eliminates the need to develop custom proxies on general-purpose processors (GPPs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) that establish communication to waveform objects residing within FPGAs. These proxies (sometimes called hardware abstraction layers or HALs) have been used when designing to SDR architectures such as the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) and are meant to increase portability and reuse, but in practice, tend to increase latency, reduce throughput, and lower reuse potential. The Spectra ICO demo equipment consists of a PC running the client code (developed using a PrismTech OpenFusion C++ ORB) and an Altera Cyclone II development board that hosts the FPGA. The software running on the PC generates a CORBA GIOP message bound for the ICO, encapsulates it in an Ethernet frame and transmits the packet to the demonstration board. For more information contact PrismTech online at www.prismtech.com.