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What is FPGA? 2. What is ASIC? How does an FPGA and ASIC differ in terms of function and usage? 3. Give applications of FPGA and ASIC. 4. What is Hardware Description Language? 5. What is Verilog and VHDL? How do they differ in terms of coding?
1. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are reprogrammable silicon chips. Ross Freeman, the cofounder of Xilinx, invented the first FPGA in 1985. FPGA chip adoption across all industries is driven by the fact that FPGAs combine the best parts of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and processor-based systems. FPGAs provide hardware-timed speed and reliability, but they do not require high volumes to justify the large upfront expense of custom ASIC design. 2. The term 'ASIC' stands for 'application-specific integrated circuit'. An ASIC is basically an integrated circuit designed specifically for a special purpose or application. Strictly speaking, this also implies that an ASIC is built only for one and only one customer. An example of an ASIC is an IC designed for a specific line of cellular phones of a company, whereby no other products can use it except the cell phones belonging to that product line. The opposite of an ASIC is a standard product or general purpose IC, such as a logic gate or a general purpose microcontroller, both of which can be used in any electronic application by anybody.
http://www.xilinx.com/fpga/asic.htm
Benefit
No layout, masks or other manufacturing steps are needed Costs typically associated with an ASIC design Due to software that handles much of the routing, placement, and timing Due to elimination of potential re-spins, wafer capacities, etc. A new bitstream can be uploaded remotely
For design since device is manufactured to design specs For very high volume designs Since device is manufactured to design specs
radio, ASIC prototyping, medical imaging, computer vision, speech recognition, cryptography, bioinformatics, computer hardware emulation, radio astronomy, metal detection and a growing range of other areas. FPGAs originally began as competitors to CPLDs and competed in a similar space, that of glue logic for PCBs. As their size, capabilities, and speed increased, they began to take over larger and larger functions to the state where some are now marketed as full systems on chips (SoC). Particularly with the introduction of dedicated multipliers into FPGA architectures in the late 1990s, applications which had [25][26] traditionally been the sole reserve of DSPs began to incorporate FPGAs instead. Traditionally, FPGAs have been reserved for specific vertical applications where the volume of production is small. For these low-volume applications, the premium that companies pay in hardware costs per unit for a programmable chip is more affordable than the development resources spent on creating an ASIC for a low-volume application. Today, new cost and performance dynamics have broadened the range of viable applications. Common FPGA Applications Aerospace and Defense Avionics/DO-254 MILCOM Missiles & Munitions
ASIC Prototyping Audio Connectivity Solutions Portable Electronics Radio Digital Signal Processing (DSP)
Automotive High Resolution Video Image Processing Vehicle Networking and Connectivity Automotive Infotainment
Broadcast Real-Time Video Engine EdgeQAM Encoders Displays Switches and Routers
Consumer Electronics Digital Displays Digital Cameras Multi-function Printers Portable Electronics Set-top Boxes
SIGINT Systems High-end RADARS High-end Beam Forming Systems Data Mining Systems
Video & Image Processing High Resolution Video Video Over IP Gateway Digital Displays Industrial Imaging
4. Designers of digital ASICs use a hardware description language (HDL), such as Verilog or VHDL, to describe the functionality of ASICs. 5. http://www.1-core.com/library/digital/fpga-design-tutorial/hdl.shtml
FPGA design services 1-CORE Technologies provides FPGA design services of high quality since 2004. Outsourcing FPGA design to Russia will significantly reduce your design costs. The basic level for FPGA design entry is Register Transfer Level which represents a digital circuit as a set of connected primitives (adders, counter, multiplexers, registers etc.). There are two basic ways to create an RTL design: schematic entry and HDL entry. Schematic entry is somewhat close to netlist: it is not very convenient to use it for large projects. HDL entry is more convenient, but needs an additional program (synthesizer) in order to translate HDL description to netlist. Hardware description languages were designed merely to provide means of digital circuits simulation. Synthesizers were created much later. Therefore, each major HDL language has two subsets of language constructs: synthesizable (suitable for synthesis) and non-synthesizable (suitable only for simulation).
The two major HDL languages are VHDL and Verilog. Both of these languages are widespread. VHDL is more Pascal-like (or, to be more precise, Ada-like) and Verilog is more similar to C. VHDL is a strongtyped language, and Verilog is more weak-typed. The syntax constructs of HDL languages are similar to those of conventional programming languages. However, the semantics is quite different. Note that in VHDL identifiers are case-insensitive, and in Verilog they are case-sensitive.