USB as an IP Module for FPGA Designs

Student: Myilone Anandarajah

Supervisor: Dr. Adam Postula

Category: Computer Systems Engineering Thesis Project

The USB controller IP for FPGA designs provides an interface for “system on a chip” designers to connect to a USB bus. This will save them design time and the time required debugging and testing a USB Controller if they were to implement the functionality of the IP themselves. The controller IP provides much of the functionality of high end USB controllers. The IP has been developed in VHDL which is a widely used hardware description language and is supported by the major FPGA designers such as Xilinx and Altera. The VHDL code for the IP is synthesiseable onto a Xilinx Spartan XL FPGA and is synthesiseable into other types of FPGAs with minimal modification.

The electronic industries race to reduce the size of devices has led to the design of entire systems on a chip. The USB standard has made attaching peripherals to PCs incredibly simple. These trends of “System on a Chip” and the rising popularity of USB is the basis of this thesis.

Poster Presentation (PDF)

Thesis Document (PDF)