High-speed programmable FPGA Configuration through JTAG

Over the past few decades, the use of reconfigurable computing for aerospace applications has become increasingly common despite its sensitivity to ionizing radiation. Tools are needed to test and implement fault-mitigation mechanisms to increase the reliability of FPGAs in space. This paper introduces a tool called the JTAG Configuration Manager (JCM) that provides high-speed programmable access to the configuration memory of Xilinx FPGAs using the JTAG serial protocol. The JCM consists of a linux-based software library running on an embedded ARM processor paired with a hardware state machine implemented in programmable logic. Two important uses of the JCM are configuration scrubbing and fault injection. The high-speed JTAG interface allows such operations to run at up to 60 MHz, which is several times faster than traditional JTAG FPGA configuration methods. The JCM also has access to the XADC on-chip temperature monitoring and the internal Boundary SCAN, making it useful for many testing and debugging applications.