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How to Choose an FPGA Board

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Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are very exciting and fun to use application platforms. They replace the use of ASICs or Application Specifics ICs. Programmable logic has been around for a long time already, but FPGAs are more advanced and powerful. This is why they are becoming the right solution for most embedded applications. Some of the main functions and features of FPGAs are they are faster, they can improve density, they have larger memory resources and more flexible interfaces.

There are different features certain users need when choosing an FPGA. This is why FPGA board sellers find it difficult to know what costumers need, because designers still don’t know what exactly these users need from the board.  New product definition needs a deeper knowledge of available features of the device to provide for the needed FPGA trends for these applications. When choosing an FPGA board, you must know what features you need for the certain application you will be using it for.

 

You can choose from the latest family of FPGAs the Xilinx FPGA.in choosing an FPGA board consider the performance, signal integrity, memory, speed, and power consumption. In selecting the right FPGA for the applications needed here are some of the Xilinx FPGA, their features and tradeoffs:

1. The Xilinx Virtex-4 Family. Xilinx divided the Virtex-4 product into three groups to target each requirement. Its memory is much more flexible and has different forms. The distributed memory is for LUTs, single and dual port RAMs, FIFOs and shift register. These are distributed accordingly for larger memory structures, larger circular delay memory buffers, 18 Kbit block RAMs for deep FIFOs and bigger single or dual port RAMs.

2. The Xtreme DSP. It provides for the demand of the users, which is for a more powerful signal processing structure. It can operate at a speed of 500 MHz and it can spread the results of DSP slices as fast as 48-bit precision. It performs as a miniature DSP processor.

3. The XCITE Active Termination. It can reduce external discrete resistors by providing programmable termination. It also adjusts termination impedance to follow changes in drive level caused by processes, temperature and device variations.

4. The Clock Management. It allows different parts of FPGA to operate at different clock frequencies to coordinate with other clock references. It can be synchronized precisely with data sources and destinations.

5. The Resource Allocation. This is a much stronger Virtex-4 device allocation. It also has a large memory. It has supervisory functions, faster speed and better communication.

6. The Embedded System Board Design. This can let you perform real-time DSP tasks needed in applications like data acquisition, software radio, secure communications and radar systems.

7. The Software Radio Board Example. This product encompasses most of the features of many basic features of radio software.

 

Choosing the right FPGA, you can consider the FX family or Virtex-4 devices because they feature all the needed board attributes. These are the best choices for this product. Because FPGA devices have common footprints with its family members, you can substitute parts to provide for a range of processing, cost, and power requirements for the board.

FPGA Boards for Wireless Communications

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A Field-Programmable Gate Array FPGA is created to evaluate high-speed signal processing. It is designed for high-speed signal processing such as image processing, full-HD image processing, wireless communication and many more. It is normally equipped with Altera FPGA. Altera FPGAs gives the users a board spectrum of FPGAs for different functions and applications.

 

The most usual high-speed process best for FPGA processing is the front-end signal processing like the cascaded integrated comb filter and decimators for up down conversions. These front-end signals are best for FPGA architecture is simple arithmetic. However, these are intensive in computation cycles due to the fast rate of digitalizing. These are perfect for FPGAs because they are very easy for parallel processing. Also, they do not need complex algorithms. Spreading and de-spreading, error correction and code identification are other functions that need high speed processing from the FPGA. When signal-processing functions has tight integration of analog, the designer will be very flexible for application specific front end signal processing. This will improve the quality of signal and other functions like code identification and carrier acquisition. Rapid prototyping methodology can implement receive algorithm for wireless connection or multiple input multiple output wireless connection or MIMO wireless connection.

 

The use of MIMO technology is becoming the trend of the wireless communication system at present. Using multiple antennas increases the capacity and spectral efficiency of wireless communication at both the transmitter and receiver.

 

These days, prototyping those multiple antenna system is becoming more and more important at a very fast rate. They need to be prototyped because they need to verify the additional functions advanced by analytical results. Because FPGA can handle these fast processing systems it is appropriate for this wireless connection. Also, the FPGA has high-level parallelism, embedded multipliers, suitable prototyping platform and high densities. This is why it is very suitable for the MIMO wireless communication system.

 

The complex architecture of FPGAs is very suitable for the MIMO wireless system. It can handle the rapid prototyping methodology that a MIMO wireless connection needs. The functions and other capacities of an FPGA are best for this kind of application. Alltera FPGA is what FPGAs are normally equipped with.

 

Here are the kinds of Altera FPGA and their definitions:

1. The Cyclone Series FPGAs. These types of FPGAs are the lowest cost and lowest power type of FPGAs. These are best for high volume and budget sensitive applications.  The Cyclone series can be used alone, it can be used as a digital signal processor or it can be used as cost efficient embedded processing solution.

2. The Arria series FPGA. This is best for midrange budgets and midrange power performance required applications. This device provides a superior signal combined with memory, logic and DSP in this device.  It can maximize system bandwidth and integrate more functions with its on chip transceivers.

3. The Starix series FPGAs. This is the industry’s highest bandwidth and density FPGAs. This is best for high-end applications. Its latest models have integrated transceiver options.