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Hi, I am using a Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA and I have created a peripheral that does some computations and needs to access data stored in the SDRAM. The problem is that it needs to send to the processor a large number of pointers to an array and receive a large number of data corresponding to these pointers (tens of KBytes in and out). This has to happen as fast as possible so that the overhead is small and the acceleration from the peripheral is worth it. The peripheral takes ~500 cycles to complete its job but the data transfer seems to take much longer.What is the fastest way to transfer the data? My initial plan is to create an interrupt every time the peripheral needs data and tell the processor to send the data. What are the services I need to activate in the custom peripheral IPIF to do this fast? Is there another way? Can I access the SDRAM directly without using the processor?

Hi rainmakergreek,

It is difficult to give you an answer.

Could you provide a synoptic of your system?
Put on this synoptic the path taken by data.

This will help to give you some hints.

Thoma