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FPGA · DSP

FPGA Signal Processing Unit

A high-speed FPGA signal processing pipeline built in Xilinx Vivado, featuring a pipelined FFT core and real-time configurable filters, designed for hands-on ECE lab experimentation.

Xilinx VivadoVHDLFFT PipelineReal-Time Filtering
Overview

The Problem & Approach

Software-based signal processing hits a wall when sample rates climb into the megahertz range — that's where dedicated hardware pipelines take over. This project implements a real-time FFT and filtering pipeline directly on FPGA fabric using VHDL, targeting a Xilinx Artix-7 development board.

The core is a pipelined radix-2 FFT engine, feeding into a configurable FIR filter bank. Everything is built to run at full sample-rate throughput with no software bottleneck — a design constraint that shapes every stage, from fixed-point arithmetic to butterfly-stage pipelining.

Beyond the pipeline itself, this project became a teaching tool: it's used in ECE lab sessions to let students visualize, in real hardware, what a textbook FFT and filter actually look like when clocked at real speed.

Key Features

What It Does

Pipelined Radix-2 FFT

Fully pipelined FFT core sustains full sample-rate throughput with no software bottleneck.

🎛️

Configurable FIR Filters

Runtime-adjustable filter coefficients let users reshape the frequency response live.

📉

Fixed-Point Optimization

Careful fixed-point scaling balances precision against FPGA resource usage.

🖥️

Real-Time Spectrum Output

Live frequency-domain output streamed to a host display for immediate visualization.

🧪

ECE Lab Ready

Packaged with a lab manual, used in coursework to teach DSP concepts on real hardware.

🔌

Modular IP Blocks

FFT and filter stages built as reusable VHDL modules for future project reuse.

Interactive Demo

FFT Spectrum Visualizer

A simulated time-domain waveform morphing into its frequency-domain spectrum — click to switch views, just like toggling the FPGA output mode.

SAMPLE RATE · 48kHz SIM
Technical Specification

Under the Hood

Target BoardXilinx Artix-7 (Nexys A7 class)
FFT Size1024-point, radix-2
Clock Speed100 MHz core clock
Arithmetic16-bit fixed point Q1.15
Filter TypeConfigurable FIR, up to 64 taps
ToolchainXilinx Vivado 2023.x
VHDLXilinx VivadoDigital Signal ProcessingFixed-Point ArithmeticTestbench Verification

Interested in a similar build?

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