From FPGA to Support Cloud to Cloud of FPGA: State of the Art

Table 6

Summary of the FPGA cloud services.

	FPGA tools as a service	FPGA platforms as a service	FPGA resources as a service
Application	Industrial	Industrial/Academic	Industrial/Academic
Cloud model support	SaaS	PaaS	IaaS
Cloud method	Dematerialization of FPGA tools	Dematerialization of FPGA	Virtualization of FPGA resources
Related works	[52–54, 57]	[59, 61–64, 66]	[69–73, 75, 76, 79]
Solved challenges^1	C2, C3	C3	C3
Solved FPGA difficulties	(i) FPGA tools selection (D3); (ii) License software (D4); (iii) Tools parameters (D5); (iv) Timing closure (D6); (v) FPGA device selection (D7)	(i) FPGA platform selection (D8); (ii) FPGA device selection (D7)	(i) FPGA platform selection (D8); (ii) FPGA device selection (D7)
Open issues	(i) Lack of FPGA platforms, where hardware designers must buy FPGA platform (D8); (ii) Hardware designers must develop and integrate their own IPs locally (D1, D2)	(i) Application designers should define a fixed limited time when they use the platform; (ii) Feasibility of using a set of FPGA on a sharing time with a low number of application designers; (iii) Hardware designers must develop and integrate their own IPs locally (D1, D2); (iv) Hardware designers should setup FPGA tools locally to simulate and implement their designs (D3, D4, D5); (v) The hardware designer must achieve the timing closure (D6)	(i) Hardware designers must develop and integrate their own IPs locally (D1, D2); (ii) Hardware designers should setup FPGA tools locally to simulate and implement their designs (D3, D4, D5); (iii) The hardware designer must achieve the timing closure (D6)

¹Solved challenges with that the challenge is partially solved.