An efficient embedded multi-ported memory architecture for next-generation FPGAs

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in utilization of FPGAs to enhance the speed-performance of many real-time compute and data intensive applications on embedded platforms. FPGA-based designs leverage parallelism in computations to achieve high speed-performance. Parallel computations require multi-ported memories to provide any number of ports for simultaneous multiple read/write (R/W) operations. Although several multi-ported memories are proposed in the literature, these designs become complex due to the extra logic and routing used for techniques/architectures to provide an arbitrary number of R/W ports. In this research work, we introduce a novel and efficient multi-ported memory architecture utilizing simple dual-port BRAMs, to provide an arbitrary number of R/W ports. Apart from the BRAMs, our proposed multi-ported memory design only consists of the Decision Making Modules and a counter, thus simplifying the design process. The R/W operations within our architecture are also straightforward. Experiments are performed to evaluate the feasibility and efficiency of our multi-ported memory architecture. We also evaluate our architecture with the most recently proposed multi-ported memory designs, implemented using LVT and XOR techniques, from the existing literature. FPGA manufacturers could employ our multi-ported memory architecture to accelerate real-time compute/data intensive applications with their next-generation FPGAs. Due to lower design complexity compared to the existing designs, our simplified memory architecture would enable seamless integration to the existing FPGA-based CAD tools with minimal design cost.