How This Book Is Organized

For software and hardware developers, we present important background information about FPGA devices, their history, and the types of tools available for them, and we also survey some of the available FPGA-based computing platforms.

After setting the stage, we then present a method of programming, using the C language, and a programming model that is appropriate for use with highly parallel programmable hardware platforms. This programming model is somewhat different from traditional, more procedural C-language programming but is easy for experienced software engineers to pick up and use.

From that foundation we then move into a series of examples, all written in C, that demonstrate how to take advantage of the massive levels of parallelism that are available in an FPGA-based platform. We will describe software coding techniques that allow better optimization of C-language statements by automated compiler tools. These techniques are not difficult to understand but can have dramatic impacts on the performance of an FPGA application.

Later chapters present examples of how a streaming programming model can be used to create even higher levels of performance. Using a multiple-process streaming programming model can result in truly astonishing levels of performance with relatively little effort, but to the traditional C programmer the methods used to achieve such levels of performance may be somewhat new and different.