The Design of RPM: An FPGA-based Multiprocessor Emulator

Recent advances in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and programmable interconnects have made it pos-sible to build efficient hardware emulation engines. In addi-tion, improvements in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools, mainly in synthesis tools, greatly simplify the design of large circuits. The RPM (Rapid Prototype Engine for Multiprocessors) Project leverages these two technological advances. Its goal is to develop a common hardware plat-form for the emulation of multiprocessor systems with dif-ferent architectures. For cost reasons, the use of FPGAs in RPM is limited to the memory controllers, while the rest of the emulator, including the processors, memories and interconnect, is built with off-the-shelf components. A flexible non-intru-sive event logging mechanism is included at all levels of the memory hierarchy, making it possible to monitor the emula-tion in very fine detail. This paper presents the hardware design of RPM