A software/hardware platform for rapid prototyping of video and multimedia designs

Traditional design and test of complex multimedia systems involves a large number of test vectors and is a difficult and time-consuming task. The simulation times are prohibitively long on current desktop computers. Driving actual design scenarios and timing burst behavior which produce real-time effects is difficult to do with current simulation environments. This paper describes a rapid emulation framework for accessing multiple hardware IP blocks on an FPGA. This solution involves an abstraction of the FPGA platform by having a virtual socket layer that resides between the design and the test vehicles. A rapid prototyping platform is thus created, and its use with complex video and multimedia systems is described.