What is the application and development trend of FPGA in the field of consumer electronics?

FPGA-from unfamiliar to familiar, from noble to ordinary, from mysterious to full of attraction...Electronic application engineers and designers are beginning to think about applying FPGA to various fields. Large-scale, integrated high-speed transceiver SRAM architecture FPGA is The communications field has taken on an irreplaceable role, while the anti-fuse architecture FPGA is the first choice in the military and aerospace fields, and the Flash architecture FPGA has the same characteristics as CPLD. A single chip allows designers to avoid many chip configurations. Consider, but have all the features of FPGA better than CPLD... Yes, don’t have too many opening remarks. This is an article for insiders who are familiar with FPGA. Then my point of view can be straightforward and more consideration in modern FPGA-based design It is two words: characteristics. The functional design of FPGA is relatively fixed, it may be a certain item, but the characteristics determine whether the device you choose can be applied to an industry!

So looking back, consider what the needs of the consumer field are. Rapid prototyping, tight time-to-market, stable and reliable functional design, flexible and changeable functional requirements and even emphasizing low-carbon power consumption analysis, etc., are already big compared to FPGAs. Compared with the large-scale occupation of communications, military, industry and other fields, FPGA entry into the consumer field seems to be a recent thing, and when it comes to the required functions, if FPGA can be used to control rockets and satellites, then you still doubt whether FPGA can be implemented Closed-loop temperature monitoring of a refrigerator? If FPGA can handle optical fiber communication easily on the communication server, then you still suspect that it cannot be used as baseband modulation of a mobile phone? But no one uses the FPGA on the rocket to build a refrigerator, nor chooses the FPGA model on the communication server in the mobile phone. Obviously, the functions required by consumer products should be very simple, such as interface expansion and level standards. The conversion of logic devices, the replacement of logic devices, etc., and the more important is the evaluation of characteristics. The logic resources of small-scale devices may be able to achieve the conversion of multiple level standards of the mobile phone motherboard, but what you have to consider is power consumption and space occupation. Many factors such as area, cost, and soft error rate are the basic characteristics that really limit whether the device you choose can be used as a low-power handheld device.

　　ACTEL recently used its unique advantages of IGLOO low-power products to give birth to several consumer designs, which are enough to inspire designers' bold ideas and prove that FPGAs have begun to extend their reach to huge consumer areas. When a mobile phone repair worker had a headache and the customer asked to replace a mobile phone screen that had long been discontinued, he thought he had no choice but to have ACTEL's small size and low power consumption IGLOO devices, yes 3mm*3mm devices can be attached to the phone’s motherboard On the cable with the screen, the TFT timing converted by the FPGA interface has allowed him to get rid of the limitation of the original mobile phone screen. Now he can change to a screen with any interface standard; another very creative product comes from South Korea's Samsung , A digital camera with front and rear dual screens satisfies friends who like to take selfies. I believe many people no longer doubt Samsung’s ability to lead trends in consumer products. Samsung’s bold introduction of FPGA applications in product design also leads the way. Technological trend, this function of scaling the large screen image on the back to the small screen in front is completed by an IGLOO low-power device of ACTEL. Not only that, you can do image inversion and other operations, and all of this It only consumes the battery's microampere current, and even when you need to standby, IGLOO can enter the extremely low 0.2 microwatt FlashFreez sleep mode, and it only needs 1uS of your time to switch to the dynamic state, and you will not miss your wonderful moments. Isn't it?

The trend in the consumer field is to continuously expand rapidly. Designers who survive in this field strive not only for creativity, but also for speed. On the other hand, semiconductor manufacturers are bound to regard consumer goods as a battleground, but as mentioned above The characteristics of consumer product design are important factors that have to be considered. First of all, we will face the problem of how to quickly design verification. When designing a unique functional idea, FPGA may be the best choice; if you cannot find a universal FPGA may be the best choice when it comes to an all-round chip... However, in many cases, once productization and the continuous increase in usage make it possible to customize ASICs, then designers may begin to consider FPGAs after comprehensive evaluation. A trade-off is made between the continuous cost of the production, burning and testing process and the cost of one-time tapeout. The birth of ASIC is actually such a process. However, the birth of ASIC means that FPGA is replaced, which makes FPGA in To a certain extent, the consumer sector has become a transitional design solution.

　　 However, FPGA manufacturers will not stand idly by. In fact, FPGA itself also plays a role of prototype verification in the ASIC design process. The first to respond was ACTEL. His anti-fuse or Flash architecture FPGA benefited from the power-down non-volatile floating gate structure. This allows FPGA to remove the configuration process and loading process to achieve a true single chip. ACTEL company It has the ability to provide bare chips, and supports all design materials and parameters, and even provides services such as factory programming and wafer testing. With the support of ACTEL’s design and encryption file authorization technology, customers don’t have to worry about the leakage of intellectual property rights. Compared with the full custom stick figure ASIC process that was originally several months long, with the DIELOT product provided by ACTEL, Customers can easily convert prototype designs into products and customize their own ASICs with minimal Bonding costs. ACTEL also has many cases based on DIELOT design in the world. ACTEL has plans to further improve the processing technology to increase speed and computing performance, further reduce energy consumption, and at the same time improve ACTEL's bare chip supply design services. ACTEL uses Power Matters as the main line of product planning and has targeted the vast majority of consumer products field.

If you want to know more, our website has product specifications for application and development trend of FPGA, you can go to ALLICDATA ELECTRONICS LIMITED to get more information