2017 NetFPGA Design Challenge

As most of you know, the majority of full-time development on lowRISC takes place at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. However, we’re far from the only open source hardware activity at the University. Our colleagues on the NetFPGA project have an open source design challenge that many readers of this blog might be interested in. See the design challenge website, or read below for more details:

We are pleased to announce the 2017 NetFPGA Design Challenge!

NetFPGA platforms are used by the networked systems community for close to 
a decade. The platforms enable researchers and instructors to build 
high-speed, hardware-accelerated networking systems. The platforms can be used 
by researchers to prototype advanced services for next-generation networked 
systems. By using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), NetFPGA enables new 
types of packet routing circuits to be implemented and detailed measurements 
of network traffic to be obtained.

The NetFPGA 2017 contest is a design challenge. The design teams are to 
produce a working implementation employing any HW and SW design methodology 
and targeting the NetFPGA SUME platform. The deadline for submissions is April 
13th, 2017. The winners will be announced at the NetFPGA Developers Summit 
(Thursday 20th - Friday, 21st April, 2017 Cambridge, UK).

Challenge: Lowest Latency Switch

Low latency devices are being increasingly used across a large number of 
applications. Low latency solutions are few, and are rarely open source. The 
goal of this challenge is to provide a usable, high performance, open source 
alternative to use by universities and organizations who need the flexibility 
of open source.  The systems will be evaluated using OSNT, an Open Source 
Network Tester. Test benches will be available online, for users to experiment 
and independently evaluate their design. The competition is open to students 
of all levels (undergraduate and postgraduate), as well as to non students. 
There is no need to own a NetFPGA SUME platform to take part in the 
competition although, clearly, development and testing will be made easier if 
you have access to this platform.  

Team Prizes:
First place: £500
Best students project: £500

The winning projects and runner ups will be invited to present their work 
at the NetFPGA Developers Summit 2017.  All challenge participants are keenly 
encouraged to attend the NetFPGA Developers Summit and are entitled to a 
reduced registration rate.

The design challenge prizes are generously 
supported by IMC http://www.imc.nl/