FPGA Support to Medical Device Company

Medical device client had a large FPGA code base with a complex processing data flow. The code was written by a design firm and relied on a set of legacy libraries. A contractor had been hired to make the changes needed to support completing the medical device development.

The code was not well documented and the original engineers were no longer available. The code was not well structured and was difficult to understand. The code was not well tested and had many undeisred behaviors. The code was not well structured and was difficult to understand. The code was not well tested and had many bugs.

I was brought in to assess the code base, deterimine if a rewrite was in order and possibly consider using a different methodology. My analysis was that while it would be desireable to rewrite the code using a more modern development approach, the time and cost to do so would be prohibitive. I recommended that the code be refactored to improve its structure and test coverage. I also recommended that the code be documented to improve understanding and to support future development. In addition I recommended that test wrappers and test harnesses be developed for all modules.

Summary of tasks performed:

1. Evaluate FPGA code base and recommend corrective development approach
2. Improve understanding and documentation of code base
3. Improve test coverage by developing test wrappers and test harnesses for a number of modules