NetFPGA
The NetFPGA is an open platform and user community developed to enable teachers and researchers to build high-speed, hardware-accelerated networking systems. The platform is used by instructors to teach students how to build line rate Ethernet switches and Internet Protocol (IP) routers. The NetFPGA program is supported through partnerships and donations from sponsors.
The NetFPGA platform not only consists of the NetFPGA board, but also the development environment and scripts that allow for rapid prototyping and development of hardware projects. The development environment is available from the NetFPGA website (http://netfpga.org).
The NetFPGA user community has contributed open source projects and Verilog modules that are also available from the NetFPGA website.
NetFPGA 1G Specifications
- Xilinx Virtex-II Pro 50
- 4 One Gigabit interfaces (RJ45 connectors)
- 4.5 Megabytes SRAM
- 64 Megabytes DDR2 DRAM
- 2 SATA-style connectors to Multi-gigabit I/O
- Standard PCI card
- JTAG cable connector for Xilinx ChipScope
Reference Designs
The NetFPGA package contains the following reference designs that can be immediately used on the platform:
- IPv4 Reference Router
- Ethernet Switch
- Quad-Port Gigabit NIC
- Hardware Accelerated Linux Router
- Buffer Monitoring System
- DRAM Router
- DRAM Queue Test
License
The NetFPGA code is distributed using a BSD-style license. For details and the full license refer to the NetFPGA website