Performance Evaluation of FPGA-Embedded Web Servers

Embedded web servers have a growing presence in a wide range of fields related to consumer electronics and industrial applications. FPGAs are a valid alternative in the implementation of these systems adding additional advantages to the traditional architectures based on microprocessors or microcontrollers. In this paper we introduce two web server implementations on FPGA devices. The first uses an embedded hard core microprocessor and the second is based on specifically designed hardware. The performance of these implementations has been evaluated and compared with commercial architectures. The results show that FPGA-based servers have a similar or superior throughput than other approaches but with reduced consumption of resources and low clock rates.