Hardware/Software development of a System on Chip platform for VoIP application

Abstract

This paper describes the hardware/software development of a system on chip (SoC) platform for voice over Internet (VoIP) gateway. To build the platform, we have adopted both the OpenCores and Opensources design concepts. The platform includes a software part and a hardware part. The software part is related to the VoIP application configuration. The hardware part is represented by the VoIP gateway architecture, which is mainly based on the OR1200 processor, some basic peripherals, such as the debug interface for debugging purpose, a direct memory access (DMA), a memory controller, two external flash and SDRAM memories, a universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART), an audio codec for voice coding, a standard 10/100 MAC/Ethernet for network interface and an internal boot memory. These cores are connected through the WISHBONE bus interface. The platform uses a set of tools including a compiler, an assembler, and a debugger that is used for system debugging and software development. The design is done using the Verilog language. The architecture is mapped into the Virtex-II XC2V3000 FPGA development board. Results show that the gateway architecture occupies 40% of logic resources and 22% of IOBs. In the software part, we have tested an embedded network application, using the uClinux as an operating system and the 10/100 MAC/Ethernet as network controller.