1 Gbit/s UDP/IP Offload Engine IP Core with PCIe Interface

Abstract

A significant amount of processor power is required to handle packet processing in high speed data networks and taking it to the hardware helps processor to save its energy for other processes. In this study, an Offload Engine IP core that provides the hardware acceleration of UDP/IP protocol stack together with a few other network protocols is introduced. Furthermore, the IP core is equipped with PCI Express (PCIe) interface so as to communicate with applications running on a host PC. Consequently, a processor core deals with only the data processing, while the IP core takes care of the packet processing as per the protocol. The design and implementation of the IP core are verified and tested on an FPGA board; its area utilization and supported features are compared against several competitive designs from the literature. According to these results, the IP core is proved to be a useful one for those network applications that require a hardware-accelerated network protocol stack.