FPGA interface

National Instruments has announced a programming interface from its NI Lab virtual research lab that makes it easier for C/C++ developers to take advantage of the LabVIEW FPGA module and FPGA-based hardware for embedded control and acquisition applications.

With the C interface to LabVIEW FPGA, developers can use LabVIEW graphical tools to program the FPGA within NI hardware and choose either LabVIEW or C/C++ tools to program the processor within the system.

This helps engineers and scientists with C expertise implement FPGAs within their design without learning hardware design.

It takes advantage of a reconfigurable I/O driver for communication between the processor and FPGA in FPGA-based hardware such as CompactRIO and Single-Board RIO.

The RIO driver abstracts the communication between the processor and FPGA so that developers can avoid register-level programming.

With the C interface to LabVIEW FPGA, users can program the real-time processor on FPGA-based hardware using C tools such as LabWindows/CVI, Visual Studio or Wind River Workbench and interface to the LabVIEW FPGA code running on the FPGA.

Developers can also program the processor using the LabVIEW Real-Time Module, which includes tools for low-level system debugging and precision execution timing for increased flexibility and functionality of deterministic real-time applications.

Additionally, the interface allows developers to use C/C++ to program the real-time processor of a PXI system or a processor on a PC running Windows and interface to the LabVIEW FPGA code running on an NI FlexRIO or a PXI/Compact PCI/PCI NI R Series FPGA I/O device.

The RIO driver provides single-point transfer and DMA streaming functionality as well as interrupt-based communication between the processor and embedded FPGA within NI hardware.