Internet connected FPGAs

There is a growing demand for small, low cost, low power, and flexible computing devices or appliances that attach directly to the Internet. For example, there are forecasts that non-PC devices will account for almost 50 percent of Internet devices by 2002 and that sales of such appliances will likely exceed the number of PCs sold by 2005. In this paper, we describe a platform that connects an FPGA directly to any Internet. We built this platform to investigate hardware and software implementations of an increasingly important function: Internet connectivity. The platform hardware consists of an FPGA; an interface device; storage for static and dynamic configuration; and nonvolatile configuration logic. Our design allows us to eliminate the need for a microprocessor and operating system.