FPGA-based implementation of a chirp signal generator using an OpenCL design

Abstract

A novel approach to developing an FPGA-based chirp signal generator using high-level synthesis implementation is proposed. OpenCL, which is a framework used for high-level synthesis (HLS) methodologies, is employed instead of the Verilog/VHDL language to program FPGA. OpenCL has been used for FPGA programming, particularly in high-performance computing applications. Utilizing OpenCL for FPGA development reduces development time because of the high-level abstraction of the code. However, compared to Verilog/VHDL, standard OpenCL does not enable direct access to the FPGA's I/O. In this study, the FPGA needs to access the I/O pins to communicate with the DAC and generate the chirp signal. Thus, direct access to the FPGA I/O pin from the OpenCL environment is required. Therefore, a new OpenCL component is developed to enable the FPGA to communicate with the DAC, thus allowing data streaming to generate the chirp signal. This OpenCL component enables us to stream the data from the FPGA to generate the chirp signal. Here, we demonstrate that by using OpenCL implementation, the FPGA can generate an I/Q chirp signal efficiently. Moreover, the same OpenCL kernel can be employed to generate different bandwidths of the chirp signal without having to reprogram the FPGA. To demonstrate the capability of the system, we generated the I/Q chirp signal from 1 MHz to 5 MHz, 5 MHz to 10 MHz, 10 MHz to 15 MHz and 15 MHz to 20 MHz for a period of 10 µs.