A Methodology and Tool Framework for Supporting Rapid Exploration of Memory Hierarchies in FPGAs

This paper introduces a novel methodology for enabling rapid exploration of memory hierarchies onto FPGA devices. The methodology is software supported by a new open-source tool framework, named NAROUTO. Among others, the proposed framework enables critical tasks during architecture´s design, such as memory hierarchy and floor-planning. Furthermore, NAROUTO framework is the only available solution for power/energy evaluation of different memory organizations. Experimental results shown that NAROUTO framework leads to significant area, power (about 82%) and performance (about 46%) improvements, as compared to existing solutions.