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Virginia Tech

Open-Source Bitstream Generation for FPGAs

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Bitstream generation has traditionally been the single part of the FPGA design flow that has not been openly reproduced. This work enables bitstream generation for "limited" resources without reverse-engineering or violating End-User License Agreement terms. Two use cases in particular have motivated this work--embedded bitstream generation and fast bitstream generation for small changes in design--both of which are not feasible with the Xilinx's bitstream generation tool. The approach is to first define a set of primitives which can implement an arbitrary digital design and create a library of micro-bitstreams of the primitives. An input design is then mapped to the set of primitives and a bitstream for the design is generated by merging the corresponding micro-bitstreams. This work uses architectural primitives. Initial support is limited to the Virtex-5 and Virtex-7 family of FPGAs from Xilinx, but it can be extended to other Xilinx architectures. Nearly all routing resources in the device, as well as the most common logic resources are supported by this work.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2013

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Soni, Ritesh K.
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Athanas, Peter M.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Jones, Mark T.
  • Schaumont, Patrick R.

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:1612
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/51836

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Soni, Ritesh K.. Open-Source Bitstream Generation for FPGAs. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/51836