I have an FPGA and a powerful ARM processor both support DDR3. I am an experienced designer for smaller more embedded designs with less powerful CPUs but this is my first rodeo with a powerful ARM and FPGAs. I am trying to figure out if I could share the DDR3 between the processor and FPGA so that I can use the memory as a way to communicate between the two. I need to shift large amounts of data between the two. Also, this would simplify(?) my design and save cost. I don't know what is the feasibility of this.
Electronic – Sharing DDR3 memory between two sources
ddr3sharedbus
Best Answer
You should look at the SoC and Zync devices from Altera and Xilinx. These chips offer ARM9 processors merged with FPGA fabric. This allows you to setup a single DDR3 interface, but have both the FPGA and CPU's access it via internal multi-port DDR3 controllers.
Cyclone V SoCs: Lowest System Cost and Power
Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC