Dracon: An Open-Hardware Based Platform for Single-Chip Low-Cost Reconfigurable IoT Devices
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemAutor
Parrilla Roure, Luis; García Ríos, Antonio; Castillo Morales, María Encarnación; López Villanueva, Juan AntonioEditorial
MDPI
Materia
IoT FPGA Hardware prototyping Microprocessor Edge computing
Fecha
2022-07-02Referencia bibliográfica
Parrilla, L... [et al.]. Dracon: An Open-Hardware Based Platform for Single-Chip Low-Cost Reconfigurable IoT Devices. Electronics 2022, 11, 2080. [https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11132080]
Patrocinador
Junta de Andalucia; European Commission B-TIC-588-UGR20Resumen
The development of devices for the Internet of Things (IoT) requires the rapid prototyping
of different hardware configurations. In this paper, a modular hardware platform allowing to
prototype, test and even implement IoT appliances on low-cost reconfigurable devices is presented.
The proposed platform, named Dracon, includes a Z80-clone microprocessor, up to 64 KB of RAM,
and 256 inputs/outputs (I/Os). These I/Os can be used to connect additional co-processors within
the same FPGA, external co-processors, communications modules, sensors and actuators. Dracon also
includes as default peripherals a UART for programming and accessing the microprocessor, a Real
Time Clock, and an Interrupt Timer. The use of an 8-bit microprocessor allows the use of the internal
memory of the reconfigurable device as program memory, thereby, enabling the implementation of
a complete IoT device within a single low-cost chip. Indeed, results using a Spartan 7 FPGA show
that it is possible to implement Dracon with only 1515 6-input LUTs while operating at a maximum
frequency of 80 MHz, which results in a better trade-off in terms of area and performance than other
less powerful and less versatile alternatives in the literature. Moreover, the presented platform allows
the development of embedded software applications independently of the selected FPGA device,
enabling rapid prototyping and implementations on devices from different manufacturers.