Improving the performance of shared memory communication in Impulse C

With the evolution of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to the Million-Gate scope, high-level languages are gaining popularity in electronic system design, which greatly improves design and verification efficiency. Impulse C is a high-level language widely used in software/hardware (SW/HW) codesign and provides users with varies SW/HW communication mechanisms. But the communication mechanisms of Impulse C are mainly designed for versatility, and the resources within the FPGA chip is not fully utilized. In this letter, we present a improved implementation of the shared memory communication in Impulse C by utilizing both ports of the dual-port BRAM. Experiment results show that the improved implementation can greatly improve the performance of shared memory communication, and further improve the execution efficiency of hardware processes.