Timothy Campbell and Tian Xia
University of Vermont

DSP algorithmic realization in FPGA fabric can be easily controlled and debugged through high-speed Ethernet communication. This interoperable solution allows for portability and usage in other designs. Because of the widespread use of the standard, the FPGA is capable of transmitting data at high speeds to a vast array of external devices.

In this article we'll present a broadcast HTML page used as a debugging interface to the FPGA. This broadcast page can be easily modified through software to tailor to your debugging needs. The design is built on a sample design packaged with the Xilinx® ML403 Virtex™-4 evaluation board, in which the HTML code is stored locally to the FPGA. Connecting to the IP address of the Ethernet MAC (media access controller) through a Web browser loads the HTML file.