Expanding applications for low-cost FPGAs

By Gordon Hands, Lattice Semiconductor Corp.    
April 04, 2007 -- pldesignline.com

The low-cost FPGA marketplace

Over the last several years, the popularity of low-cost Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) has increased dramatically, to the point where low-cost FPGAs now represent approximately 25% of the overall market. However, the features these products provide (or do not provide) have limited the applications that can utilize low-cost FPGAs. The challenge for FPGA providers is to increase the feature set of these devices while continuing to deliver the attractive price points that have made these devices so popular.

This article examines the need for, and approaches to, providing enhanced low-cost FPGA capability in the areas of SERDES, DSP, high-speed source synchronous I/O, memory capacity and device configuration. The article concludes with a summary of the second generation EConomy Plus FPGAs from Lattice Semiconductor, and the approaches taken to address these five capabilities.

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