Challenges mastered with LPKF Prototyping Equipment

One of the bigger projects at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) targets working on multi-/many-core systems. The KIT has a prototype with 64 cores implemented on an FPGA. There are always four cores grouped together in a so-called tile.

Each tile has its own debug support unit that allows to initialize the cores in the tile for debugging them via UART port. To achieve this, we had to connect 16 UART ports to a single communication channel - USB port on PC.

As no ready-made solution was available, LPKF in-house PCB prototyping equipment was used to develop a solution to address 16 UARTs via a single USB port.