SBACreator, a free multiplatform tool for the creation

of simple bus architectures for FPGA

Miguel A. Risco-Castillo
Reconfigurable devices, Embedded systems
Microelectronics Group
Lima, Peru
mrisco@accesus.com

AbstractNowadays, the major FPGA manufacturers have

included in their devices ARM-based hardware processors,
integrating very capable SoCs. They provide also, specialized
II. THE SBA ARCHITECTURE
software tools for operate them efficiently. Despite the high speed
of these hardware cores, some tasks are better processed in the
programmable logic, hence is important do not forget to improve
A. General architecture
the tools for work with the FPGA logic fabric. Design with
reconfigurable logic devices can have a good impact in the
engineering education, but the tools are different between the B. The main cores in SBA
manufacturers and sometimes incompatible with each other, that
limit the collaboration and difficult the choice of the platform. The

Simple Bus Architecture (SBA) proposed an easy way to create a
simple system at the interior of the FPGA, it has some generic C. The auxiliaries cores in SBA
cores to achieve a functional design in very short time across
multiple FPGA manufacturers and, because the use of generic
VHDL code, it is compatible almost with all tools. This paper III. A SIMPLE DEMO PROJECT
covers the design methods to implement a SBA system in the
FPGA using a new free tool, the SBACreator, also introduce to the

use of the open SBA VHDL code repository, where the designers
can get and share SBA functional cores. A. General specification

KeywordsFPGA; SoC; VHDL; SBA; Instrumentation
B. Partitioning
I. INTRODUCTION ...
The FPGA manufacturers continuously improves their
software tools, they also have great repositories of code, but C. Choice the hardware
many not allow an easy way to share the work between different
platform. There are also free options, for example Opencores
have an organized library of IP cores and some tools, but most .
of the free tools are rudimentary. Opencores also have a revision
control system, but it is based in SVN and it could be a little IV. THE SBACREATOR
difficult to work with it when it is offline and if the team is large.
Opencores support Wishbone, a system on chip interconnect
architecture for portable IP cores. Wishbone is not the code itself
but is a set of generic rules and specification for IP core
interconnect.
Because to this generality, several interpretations and
implementations arise over Wishbone. But, to ensure some
grade of compatibility in the work of a team, some additional
rules must be defined. That rules sometimes break compatibility
between the work of different teams. Then the IP cores cannot
be easily shared.
 a)
b)

2) ...
a)
b)
B. Exporting the proyect to EDA tools
.

V. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

A.
1)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

A. Generating the Project

REFERENCES

[1]
1)