In order to meet the needs of the automotive electronics market, new FPGA products are under development.

Last Update Time: 2019-07-15 10:28:17

Due to cost pressures, the design and production of automotive electronics has consistently used the same materials, packaging and assembly techniques as other commercial products, forcing many semiconductor suppliers to define the standards of commercial platforms for use in more challenging environments. Automotive electronics require an ambient temperature range of -40°C to +125°C, which far exceeds the standard commercial and industrial temperature ranges specified by many suppliers. But FPGA vendors such as Actel, for high-reliability applications such as commercial aviation and military systems, will be able to provide customers with FPGA products that maintain high reliability and security in special environments.

 

Temperature is a dominant factor affecting the reliability of electronic devices. Since devices, packages, and boards are likely to fail, it is important to reserve room for all aspects of automotive electronics. FPGA vendors such as Actel's products feature a wide military temperature range that better handles thermal expansion coefficients and avoids thermal stress. In addition, the temperature cycle change will cause low cycle fatigue of the solder joint. After a certain number of temperature cycles, cracks will appear on the surface of the device, and the crack will then expand to complete splitting. Ensuring that automotive FPGAs work properly at the industry's highest junction temperatures is another way to minimize the risk of functional degradation and failure.

 

Another factor affecting reliability is the logic chaos caused by neutron bombardment, which used to occur only in high-altitude applications, but as semiconductor manufacturing processes shrink, the electronics used on the ground are increasingly prone to logic clutter. If a unit of the SRAM structure FPGA is confusing, it may cause the FPGA to lose configuration information. This situation may cause the host system to malfunction. Radiation test data shows that Actel's anti-fuse and Flash-based FPGAs do not lose configuration information due to neutron-induced logic clutter, making them ideal for applications that require high reliability.

 

In order to meet the needs of the automotive electronics market, Actel has developed three excellent FPGA product lines based on Actel's proprietary anti-fuse technology. These new automotive product families are ideal for integrating multiple logic functions that typically require multiple CPLDs, PALs, and FPGAs, and are available in a variety of device densities, operating voltages, and functions to quickly develop cost-effective products. These devices offer solutions ranging from 3,000 to 100,000 system gates, all proven to be the industry's highest junction temperature (+150°C) (ambient temperature range -40°C to +125) °C) works fine.

Actel's anti-fuse FPGAs are non-volatile and feature unlimited storage of configuration information without the need for external memory. By eliminating the need to store external data for configuration data, the PROM or microprocessor and associated board space can be eliminated. Another feature of Actel anti-fuse technology is its inherent low power consumption. The anti-fuse impedance is low, eliminating the need for active circuitry to hold the charge, thus reducing circuit heating and power supply design issues.

This article is from Allicdata Electronics Limited.