Essential FPGA Design for Embedded Systems
According to industry analysts, FPGA designs for embedded systems are on the rise.
FPGA designs for embedded systems are getting more attention these days because they offer a flexible, low-risk path to successful system design — boasting good cost efficiencies along with value-added capabilities and long-life cycles for diverse applications.
Because a device function can be changed by entering a new code, an FPGA-based product can be revised in production more quickly than other devices.
Additionally, the cost is reasonable for low and moderate volume applications.
FPGA stands for field-programmable gate array. It is an integrated circuit that implements code in hardware to execute a thousand times faster than in a processor. These circuits, or arrays, consist of configurable logic blocks (CLBs), memory, or other elements.
FPGA circuits are very different from, say, Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), which can only do its specific function task and does not permit reprogramming or modification.
FPGA is programmed by connecting thousands of reprogrammable blocks.
Many feel that the specialization available in FPGAs is highly desirable in applications like military embedded computing, edge computing systems in industries like banking and finance, telecom, aerospace, and any other area where IP protection is critical.
More advanced systems that must dedicate power to intensive computing tasks, including things like on-device AI and blockchain, can greatly benefit from the specialization available in FPGAs.
FPGAs are useful because they can be included in embedded systems in multiple form factors and architectures such as everything on a single board. This is the standard approach to developing a new product with an FPGA. If you’ve already demonstrated a prototype and tested your application, using a custom board gives you much more control over system architecture. You could even design the board to require a smaller FPGA.
FPGAs can also start with an SoM where third-party SoMs are available or you can design a custom SoM. You’ll then need to design a base board that matches the pinout and provides connections to other components not found on the SoM. It’s also common to use a custom interposer board to interface two different embedded products.
Essential FPGA Design for Embedded Systems
Essential FPGA Design for Embedded Systems is a 2-day training course that teaches you the foundation for field-programmable gate array (FPGA) applied to embedded systems and advanced sensors. Participants will learn about the fundamentals FPGA design focusing on Embedded Systems. You will learn what an FPGA is, how to use the technology, methodology to select the best FPGA architecture, software tools for FPGA development, and practical FPGA digital design best practices.
Field programmable gate array is a semiconductor IC where a large majority of the electrical functionality inside the device can be changed by the design engineer during the PCB assembly process or in the ‘field’.
FPGAs provide benefits to designers of embedded systems and advanced sensors. Participants will learn about the basic of FPGA functionalities and embedded system design. FPGAs provide off-load and acceleration functions to CPUs speeding up the embedded system performance using on-die processors, transceiver I/O’s at 28 Gbps (or faster), RAM blocks, DSP engines, and more.
Essential FPGA Design for Embedded Systems