Communication-centric design for FMC based I/O system

This paper presents a communication-centric reconfigurable design for FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) based I/O system dedicated to several industrial application domains. The introduction of FMC I/O standard has given a new purpose for FPGAs to be used as a communication platform. In fact, FPGAs can be used for more than just computational purpose in order to improve the system performance. Taking into account the features offered by FPGAs and FMCs, such as runtime reconfiguration and modularity, we have redefined the role of these devices to be used as a generic communication-centric platform. A new modular, runtime reconfigurable, Intellectual Property (IP)-based communication system for industrial applications has been designed. The efficiency and the performances of our platform are illustrated through a real industrial use-cases designed using a computationally intensive application and several I/O bus standards.