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The evolution of FPGAs, from prototype to production

Danny Biran

Altera

FPGAs resemble traditional mask-programmed gate arrays by their modular, extensible structure that includes both logic and interconnect, but differ in that end users complete their programming at their site. These programmable devices have revolutionized the way system designers implement logic. Once only considered “glue logic,” FPGAs are now at the heart of the system, radically reducing development time, cost, and system power requirements while increasing overall performance for systems around the world.

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Additional Programmable Corner columns:

Using FPGAs to make affordable, high-quality entertainment a reality
By Martin Won, Altera - Winter 2007
Looking at big brother applications: Homeland security, Patriot Act, industry consultation or operation dystopia
By Tam Do, Altera - July 2006
FPGA coprocessors accelerate the performance of 3-D stereo image processing
By Martin S. Won, Altera Corporation - May 2006
Easy WiMAX designs with FPGAs
By Brian Jentz (Altera) and Deepak Boppana (Altera) - March 2006
Leveraging FPGA coprocessors to optimize high-performance digital video surveillance systems
By Brian Jentz and Joel Rotem - January 2006
FPGA technology fueling Software Defined Radio
By Deepak Boppana, Altera - August 2005
The programmable supercomputer on wheels
By Joel Seely - June 2005
The DSP solution spectrum for medical imaging applications using FPGAs
By Charlie Jenkins - April 2005

Articles related to the topic FPGAs:

Stretching the boundaries for FPGAs and people

Q&A with Jeff Kodosky, Co-Founder and Technology Fellow, National Instruments

Driving both technology and cost/performance

Q&A with Chris Fanning and David Lee Rutledge, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation

“Projecting” images in radar and medical applications

David Pointer —

An FPGA contributes to a reconfigurable system’s performance by allowing a programmer to explicitly and completely dedicate a device to the solution of the regular, uninterrupted streaming aspects of a program

SIGINT in the real world presents nuances

Dr. Malachy Devlin —

The flexibility of the FPGA means it can be used to run a dynamically configurable measurement application that measures the effect of the ‘uncontrollable’ parameters.

Programmable logic: The key to effective interface design

Doug Morrissey —

Ideally, OEMs should be able to get exactly the interfaces they need, without the cost and drawbacks of buying a fully-featured DSP.

FPGAs drive a wedge into embedded market fragmentation

Q & A with Craig Anderson —

Nallatech is one of those quiet technology companies whose "still waters run deep."

Low-power technology - the chicken or the egg?

Martin Mason —

Low power management solutions are key in the industry’s continuing quest to become smaller, cheaper, and portable.

Better tools put the screws to FPGA, DSP designs

Chris A. Ciufo —

Although FPGA architects still need skills as IC designers, that mythical “C to silicon” tool doesn’t yet exist, but it’s closer.

Selecting FPGAs for FIR filter implementation

Gordon Hands —

Designers face many decisions when implementing a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter within an FPGA design.

Heterogeneous hardware platforms capitalize on DSP/FPGA capabilities

Tom Hill —

Combining FPGAs and DSPs delivers winning solutions for a wide range of applications.

Using FPGAs to make affordable, high-quality entertainment a reality

Martin Won —

While DSPs can provide quality video and audio processing, they can be a costly, complex proposition in media processing applications because ma... (continues)

White Paper: Advantages of the Virtex-5 FPGA 6-Input LUT Architecture

Andrew Percey —

Get into the resource advantages of the new, 6-input LUT architecture for Virtex-5 FPGAs over competing architectures.

Graphically better designs with FPGAs

Dr. James Truchard —

By employing a graphical system design approach to FPGA designs, domain experts can quickly and easily implement their ideas to achieve high-speed control, ultimate reliability, and field-reprogrammable systems

Increasing signal visibility in FPGA-based prototypes

George Blakewell —

Prototyping complex ASIC systems with emulation and FPGA prototypes requires hardware and software operating in tandem within embedded processor-based devices. While these methods provide greater verification bandwidth, their use creates issues with operational debug and analysis that can be addressed through new visibility enhancement techniques and tools.

Xilinx Virtex-5 65nm FPGA family

Per Holmberg —

The age of digital convergence has accelerated the industry’s receptivity to and dependence on the fundamental FPGA value propositions of flexibility, time-to-market, risk-mitigation and lower system costs. The XilinxVirtex-5 platform, the industry’s first 65nm FPGAs, are engineered to meet the requirements of the growing community of equipment and system vendors riding the digital convergence wave.

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