FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is an exciting technology for system design engineers and also provides a working ground that is completely re-configurable which in turn enables the same platform for realizing multiple designs and optimize them over time.
An excerpt from the wiki reads "A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable"
Given the amount of innovation happening in this field some of the advantages that i could call out were :
- The ability to parallely run logic circuits as opposed to the sequential way of programming that we are used to in a microcontroller based design.
- Easy and Finer control on clock signals and speeds for various parts of the logic design within the FPGA.
- Of course modern FPGA families allowing the ability to incorporate soft and hard core processors.This means a lot where in now there are various vendors of FPGA boasting of running popular soft cores as well as architectures like ARM on the FPGA. There are also instances where in a complete OS is run on such processors that are configurable.
- Complete Software-Hardware reconfiguration and Co-design.
FPGA is an amazing technology with no doubt and there are various market leader like Altera,xilinx , Lattice, Actel ..etc who happen to make some really cool chipsets like these. It is also evident that development tools in the form of starter kits, evaluation modules, breakout board are the best means to get your hands on the FPGA and kick start some designs and see for themselves what this technology has to offer.
Tenet now markets as well as sells FPGA development tools and we are also hoping to soon come up with some quick start video lectures as well as workshops in our facility.
For a list of FPGA development boards please visit our store and if you have queries please feel free to write to us at info@tenettech.com
