This paper describes a lightweight Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) circuit design that supports the simultaneous programming of multiple devices at different locations throughout the Internet. This task is accomplished by a single TCP/IP socket connection. Packets are routed through a series of devices to be programmed. At each location, a hardware circuit extracts reconfiguration information from the TCP/IP byte stream and programs other devices at that location. A novel feature of the Multi-Device Programmer is that it does not use a microprocessor or even a soft-core processor. All of the TCP/IP protocol processing and packet forwarding operations are handled directly in FPGA logic and state machines. This system is robust against lost and reordered packets, and has been successfully demonstrated in the laboratory.
['David V. Schuehler', 'Kirsten Harvey', 'John W. Lockwood']
A TCP/IP based multi-device programming circuit