Automotive electronics system development teams increasingly grapplewith the challenges of new industry standards and product features. An automotive vision system is an example of a design that must deliver improved performance, system integration and security.  In turn, these requirements dictate the use of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices in an automotive vision system.

Many of the automotive vision systems now being developed specify several cameras in the design for different views, such as reverse, side and forward (Figure 1).  Depending on the application, the system designer can choose from among several types of … Read More → "Reprogrammable Logic Drives Automotive Vision Systems Design"

Non-volatile FPGA is one of today’s oddest market segments. Bound by the ill-defined characteristic of “non-volatility,” the field of available devices is diverse from the ground up, with strikingly different architectures, approaches, and benefits. Actel, long the leader in non-volatile FPGAs, began with antifuse technology (which is one-time programmable) and followed later with flash-based FPGAs. QuickLogic fielded an antifuse-type approach from the beginning, and Lattice Semiconductor joined the fray over a year ago with their LatticeXP hybrid devices, embedding a flash boot PROM on the FPGA for rapid, on-chip configuration.

In announcing their … Read More → "Short Stack with Syrup"

In the continuum of custom logic device technologies reaching from highly-custom Standard Cell ASIC at the high end to FPGA at the low end, we seldom hear from the node called “Embedded Arrays.”  The extremes get lots of publicity.  There is ample press and activity focused on both ASIC and FPGA, as these technologies are fairly easy to understand, and their benefits, problems, and trade-offs are quite familiar.  The middle is a little fuzzier and (usually unjustifiably) frightens away analysts, press, and even development teams. 

The “structured ASIC” flavor … Read More → "Un-structured ASIC"

For system designers, Moore’s Law is a gravy train.  Every couple of years, you get more gates, more speed, less power consumption, and lower cost.  For digital designers and tool developers, however, that gravy train is headed through the tunnel right at you.  Every couple of years, you have more gates to design in less time, more complexity to overcome, and tougher verification problems.  Your design tools are heavily impacted, too.  The old synthesis and place-and-route runs that took a few minutes on an old 200MHz Windows 98 laptop are now running for 24 … Read More → "ISE Storm"

From about the time of the announcement of their foundry partnership with Fujitsu, Lattice Semiconductor has been doing things a little differently.  Step by step, they’ve been establishing a real, credible presence in the fast-expanding FPGA market.  Prior to that, their FPGA-related efforts had been less than stellar, and the company had survived on a strong heritage of CPLD offerings.

After establishing an FPGA beachhead with a competitive array of 130nm low-cost FPGA families, the company shoved their way into the elite 90nm FPGA race with a full line of well differentiated low-cost … Read More → "Prototype to Production"