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SUMMARY:uvNIC: Rapid Prototyping Network Interface Controllers - Matthew G
 rosvenor (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20121022T130000Z
DTEND:20121022T140000Z
UID:TALK41030@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Andrew Rice
DESCRIPTION:Traditional approaches to NIC driver design focus on\ncommodit
 y network hardware\, which exhibit slow moving\nfeature sets and long prod
 uct life cycles. The introduction of FPGA based network adapters alters th
 e\nstatus-quo considerably. Whereas traditional ASIC based\nNICs may under
 go minor driver interface revisions over a\ntimespan of years\, FPGA based
  NIC interfaces can be\ntotally reimplemented in months or even weeks. To 
 the\ndriver developer this presents a considerable challenge:\nDriver deve
 lopment cannot seriously begin without\nhardware support\, but is now expe
 cted to take place\nsimultaneously with hardware development.\nTo solve th
 is problem\, I present the userspace\, virtual\nNIC framework (uvNIC). uvN
 IC implements a custom\nvirtual NIC as a standard userspace application. T
 o the\ndriver developer\, it presents a functional equivalent to a physica
 l device. Only minor modifications are required to switch a uvNIC enabled 
 driver over to operating on real hardware. To the hardware designer\, uvNI
 C presents a rapid prototyping environment for initial specifications and 
 a fully functional model against which HDL code can later be verified.\n
LOCATION:SS03\, William Gates Building
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