DSP Design Considerations - UG1192

AMD Design Conversion for Altera FPGAs and SoCs Methodology Guide (UG1192)

Document ID
UG1192
Release Date
2025-07-15
Revision
3.0.1 English

AMD FPGAs and SoCs offer many roads to achieve efficient DSP designs. For designers that want to start at an algorithmic level using a higher-level programming language such as C/C++, or MATLAB® , Model Composer can be the answer. The AMD Vitis™ Model Composer tool allows the designer to construct a high-level design using blocks from the Vitis Model Composer tool (see the Vitis Model Composer User Guide (UG1483)). Additionally, the tool can be used to implement a DSP algorithm targeting Versal architecture AI Engines or programmable logic (PL).

Note: The Vitis tools Model Composer can speed up algorithm development for AIE or DSP projects and output products from the tool to use in the AMD FPGA or SoC (example, hardware validation flow). However, the output products are integrated into a final customer design using the Vitis Unified Software Platform or the Vivado IDE. This is due to the enhanced capabilities of the post-algorithm design stages in those tools (example, software development and timing closure).

Other paths for design entry include writing C/C++ code for Vitis tools High-Level Synthesis (see Vitis High-Level Synthesis User Guide (UG1399)), C/C++ for Versal device AI Engine design in Vitis tools and RTL in Vivado tools (see Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Design Flows Overview (UG892)). For RTL instantiation, DSPs can be instantiated through inference (multipliers through inference), the more controllable and more complex direct instantiation (DSP48E2; DSP58 types) and DSP IP (FIR Filters and Other DSP IP and Reference Designs). The following diagram shows the different design entry methods for DSP, depending on design input types.

Figure 1. DSP Tool Flow