FPGAs - Field Programmable Gate Arrays - are future-oriented building bricks which allow perfect customization of the hardware at an attractive price even in low quantities.
With an FPGA device on a computer board it is possible to program parts of the I/O or even a complete microcontroller needed for dedicated control tasks of a specific application without touching the board layout.
FPGA components available now have usable sizes (for example Altera® Arria® with over 30,000 logic elements), support modern interconnects like PCI Express®, and their pricing is acceptable (starting from 20 Euro). This makes them effective factors for cost savings and time-to-market when making individual configurations of standard products.
A time consuming and expensive redesign of a board can often be avoided through application-specific integration of IP cores in the FPGA - an alternative for the future, especially for very specialized applications with only small or medium volumes.
Thus, increased I/O flexibility for standard and custom computer boards, long-term availability and qualification for extended operation temperature make FPGAs a key technology for time- and cost-critical embedded applications.
For safety-critical applications in avionics the internal memory structure of the FPGA must withstand cosmic radiation.
More Information
» FPGA development platforms from MEN
» FPGA-based CPU boards from MEN
» FPGA-based I/O boards from MEN
» FPGA-based Computer-on-Modules from MEN
» IP cores from MEN
» Nios®-CompactPCI® development package
» Nios® M-Module™ development kit (USM™ concept)
» Nios® PMC development kit (USM™ concept)
» IP core compare chart (PDF)
» Advantages of FPGAs (PDF)
» FPGA development services (PDF)
