Now that it is officially OK to use FPGAs in battery-powered devices, we’re seeing two groups of designers converging on the low-power FPGA design topic.  First, there are those who have been working on low-power and portable applications for years and are just now taking on FPGAs for the first time.  Second, there are those who have been doing FPGAs for years, but have never needed to perform power-conscious design because their FPGA designs were always run from small dedicated nuclear power facilities.  While both of these groups are learning new techniques, the thing … Read More → "Designing Down Power"

As I sit at my desk, there are six LCD displays within one meter of my chair: cell phone, desk phone, thermometer, calculator, laptop and external monitor.  Not all devices with LCD displays need much intelligence to display information, such as my desk phone, but the number of systems that display complex graphics and video continues to increase.

Declining display prices and rising user expectations for additional product features and functionality fuel this growth.  Companies in the transportation, automotive, information, automation, medical, industrial and consumer markets use displays in a vast array of products.

“No, but this one is really important.”

We editors are endlessly bombarded by battalions of bulldozing PR professionals trying to cleverly coax us into crafting a sentence or two on each and every sniffle of product evolution that emanates from their esteemed engineering organizations.  “This one is important,” they will say.  “Our new 2.4.3.5.21b driver version is vastly improved over 2.4.3.5.21a.  You’ll probably want to do a three-article series just on the switch from absolute to relative memory addressing…”

Right.

So, … Read More → "MicroBlazing Away"

Louis walked the last flight of stairs to the roof with his gear in tow.  Sebastian followed him and helped check the rigging.  Louis got his bearings on the edge of the roof while Sebastian checked the wind one last time.  The tell-tale strand of yarn on the handheld wind meter streamed backward and up as the LCD read the velocity.  The perfect time was… Now!  Louis pushed off and smoothly transitioned into his freefall form while pulling the release for the parachute.  As his body raced toward the terminal velocity of 55 … Read More → "FPGA BASE Jump"

Most engineers will agree that duct tape is an excellent multi-purpose tool.  This wonder product has been used for everything from giving tennis balls the feel of a cricket ball, to saving the Apollo 13 mission from certain disaster.  Engineers love good multi-purpose tools because of the sheer versatility that they offer; a good multi-purpose tool can help a creative engineer get themselves out of a real bind.

To hardware designers, FPGAs are also excellent multi-purpose tools.  No other “off-the-shelf” semiconductor can become so many different things to different people.  The super-versatile … Read More → "Duct Tape, FPGAs, and the Art of Making Great Multi-Purpose Tools"

The age of big, expensive, power-hungry FPGAs is now officially over.  Of course, FPGA companies still make devices with three (and even four) digit price tags.  The biggest, baddest chips will probably be at that price point for awhile.  But don’t be deceived.  There’s a revolution afoot, and it isn’t at the high end.  The capabilities of low-cost FPGAs are where the real action is today.

There’s nothing new about low-cost FPGAs either, of course.  They’ve been around for close to … Read More → "BOM Blast"

We’ll finally admit it.

Designing with FPGAs is hard.

We hear all the marketing pitches – you download the free software, plug in the development kit, push the sequence of “Go” buttons, and voila! The simulator plots out little waveforms. The synthesis tool thinks for about two seconds and says you met timing. Place and route successfully locates all six LUTs of the design and connects them together.  The bitstream blasts through the jtag port into your demo board.  You press the reset button.  There they are!  The … Read More → "Teaching them to Fish"