FPGA Routing Architecture Estimation Models and Methods
The problem of analyzing and evaluating the structure of FPGA routing resources at early stages of the design flow presents great interest for researchers. Until now, an approach, consisting in passing the full design flow (logic synthesis, placement, routing) on a set of the test circuits with subsequent estimation of various parameters for each FPGA architecture being analyzed, had been dominant. Despite the high accuracy, this approach has a long runtime and requires lots of computing resources, as well as CAD tuned to the analyzed FPGA architecture. Modern FPGA contain more than a million logical gates, therefore, the application of such approach is inefficient. Today, more attention is paid to the development of various models, which allows to evaluate the structure of the routing resources at early stages without using the benchmark circuits. In this work an overview of the existing models and methods for analyzing the structure of FPGA routing resources has been presented. A comparison of the methods and models has been performed, the estimation of their efficiency and possibility of application for designing domestic FPGA has been made. It has been found that the most optimal approach for analyzing of arbitrary structures of the routing resources FPGA is the development and application of mixed methods. This will allow to obtain the accurate models as well as to significantly reduce the development and market entry time.