What is FPGA? What are the advantages?

FPGA is short for Field Programmable Gate Array, and its technology continues to show growth. When Xilinx just created the FPGA in 1984, it was still a simple glued logic chip, but now in signal processing and control applications, it has replaced application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) and processor. Where is the success of this technology? Today, Shenzhen PCBA manufacturer - SysPCB will mainly introduce FPGA and focus on describing the unique advantages of FPGA.

What is FPGA?

At the highest level, FPGA is a reprogrammable silicon chips. Using pre-built logic blocks and reprogrammable routing resources, users can configure these chips to implement custom hardware functions without using circuit breadboards or soldering irons. Users develop digital computing tasks in software and compile them into configuration files or bitstreams, which contain information about the interconnection of components. In addition, FPGAs are completely reconfigurable, and when users recompile different circuit configurations, they can immediately present completely new features. In the past, only engineers who were familiar with digital hardware design knew how to use FPGA technology. However, the rise of high-level design tools is changing the way FPGAs are programmed. Emerging technologies can transform graphical block diagrams and even C code into digital hardware circuits.

FPGA is used in various industries because FPGA combine the greatest advantages of ASIC and processor-based systems. FPGA can provide the speed and stability of hardware timing, and does not require large-scale investment similar to the huge upfront cost of custom ASIC design. The flexibility of reprogrammable silicon chips is comparable to software running on processor-based systems, but it is not limited by the number of available processor cores. Unlike processors, FPGA is truly parallel implementations, so different processing operations do not need to compete for the same resources. Each independent processing task is equipped with a dedicated chip part, which can operate autonomously without being affected by other logic blocks. Therefore, when more processing tasks are added, the performance of other applications will not be affected.

FPGA application

1. Communication and Network: FPGA is widely used in the field of communication and network, mainly for various communication and network devices such as routers, switches, fiber optic communication equipment, etc. These devices require high-speed data processing, protocol conversion, data compression, and decompression functions. FPGA, with its powerful parallel processing capability and flexibility, can efficiently complete these tasks.

2. Digital Signal Processing (DSP): FPGA is widely used in the field of digital signal processing, and its powerful parallel processing capability makes FPGA an ideal choice for implementing high-performance DSP. FPGA technology is widely used in fields such as audio processing, video encoding and decoding, radar signal processing, and image processing.

3. Automotive and Aerospace: With the development of automotive electronics and intelligence, the application of FPGA in automotive electronic systems and spacecraft is becoming increasingly widespread. FPGA can be used in vehicle entertainment system, engine control unit, auto drive system, etc. to improve the system's autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance ability.

4. Industrial automation: In the field of industrial automation, FPGA can be used for tasks such as control systems, robot control, automatic detection and debugging, etc., to improve the level of industrial automation. FPGA can implement complex control algorithms, such as PID control, fuzzy control, etc., to improve the accuracy and stability of control systems.

5. High performance computing: The application of FPGA in the field of high-performance computing is becoming increasingly widespread. They can be used to accelerate various computationally intensive tasks such as scientific computing, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. FPGA can implement efficient parallel computing algorithms, accelerating the training and inference process of neural networks.

6. Intelligent Internet of Things (IoT): In the field of intelligent IoT, FPGA is used to achieve functions such as perception, data processing, communication, and security, and is widely used in smart homes, smart cities, smart agriculture, and other fields. FPGA can process data from sensors in real-time, achieving functions such as data compression, encryption, and transmission.

7. Medical equipment: In the field of medical equipment, the application of FPGA provides strong support for innovation in medical technology. The high reliability and stability of FPGA make it an ideal choice for spacecraft electronic systems.

Advantages of FPGA technology

1. Performance

Taking advantage of hardware parallelism, FPGA breaks the sequential execution mode and completes more processing tasks in each clock cycle, surpassing the computing power of the digital signal processor (DSP). BDTI, a well-known analysis and benchmarking test company, released benchmarks that show that in certain applications, FPGA processing power is many times that of DSP solutions. Control input and output (I/O) at the hardware level provides faster response time and specialized functions to meet application requirements.

2. Cost

The cost of non-recurring engineering (NRE) for ASIC design far exceeds the cost of FPGA-based hardware solutions. The huge investment in the early stages of ASIC design shows that OEMs need to ship thousands of chips each year, but more end users need custom hardware functions to enable the development of dozens to hundreds of systems. The characteristics of programmable chips mean that users can save manufacturing costs and long delivery and assembly time. The requirements of the system change from time to time, but the cost of changing the FPGA design is insignificant compared to the huge cost of ASCI.

3. Stability

Software tools provide a programming environment, and FPGA circuits are the real "hard" execution of programming. Processor-based systems often include multiple layers of abstraction that can plan tasks and share resources among multiple processes. The driver layer controls hardware resources, while the operating system manages memory and processor bandwidth. For any given processor core, only one instruction can be executed at a time, and the processor- based system is always faced with the risk of strict time-limiting tasks taking over each other. The FPGA does not use an operating system, and has true parallel execution and deterministic hardware focused on each task, which can reduce the possibility of stability problems.

4. Long-term maintenance

As mentioned above, FPGA chips are field-upgradable without the time and expense involved like redesigning ASIC. For example, digital communication protocols include specifications that can change over time, and ASIC-based interfaces may cause difficulties in maintenance and forward compatibility. The reconfigurable FPGA chip can adapt to future modifications. As the product or system matures, users do not need to spend time redesigning hardware or modifying circuit board layout to enhance functionality.

Higher-level tools continue to improve, bringing reprogrammable silicon chips to engineers and scientists of all professional levels, and the adoption of FPGA technology is becoming more and more widespread.