Week In Review: Design, Low Power


M&A Microchip Technology acquired LegUp Computing, a provider of a high-level synthesis compiler that automatically generates high-performance FPGA hardware from software. The LegUp HLS tool will be used alongside Microchip’s VectorBlox Accelerator Software Design kit and VectorBlox Neural Networking IP generator to provide a complete front-end solution stack for C/C++ algorithm develope... » read more

Are FPGAs More Secure Than Processors?


Security concerns often focus on software being executed on processors. But not all electronic functionality runs in software. FPGAs provide another way to do work, and they can be more secure than functions executed in software. FPGAs provide more control of hardware and are more opaque to attackers. In the case of embedded FPGAs, the designer is in complete control of the entire system. Th... » read more

New Architectures, Much Faster Chips


The chip industry is making progress in multiple physical dimensions and with multiple architectural approaches, setting the stage for huge performance increases based on more modular and heterogeneous designs, new advanced packaging options, and continued scaling of digital logic for at least a couple more process nodes. A number of these changes have been discussed in recent conferences. I... » read more

Logic Synthesis Basics For FPGA


In the early days of digital design, all circuits were designed manually. You would draw K-map, optimize the logic and draw the schematics. If you remember, we all did many logic optimization exercises back in college. It was time consuming and very error prone. This works fine for designs with a few hundred gates, but as the designs get larger and larger this became non-feasible. Design... » read more

eFPGAs Vs. FPGA Chiplets


Embedded FPGAs are a totally different concept from discrete FPGA chiplets, and that is reflected in size, cost, power and performance. Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks about which applications are best for each, how each maximizes power and performance, and why choices will vary greatly by application. Related eFPGA Knowledge Center FPGA Knowledge Center Increasing EFPGA Densit... » read more

Smaller Nodes, Much Bigger Problems


João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about device scaling, advanced packaging, increasing complexity and the growing role of AI. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We've been pushing along Moore's Law for roughly a half-century. What sorts of problems are you seeing now that you didn't see a couple nodes ago? Geada: The... » read more

Integrating FPGA: Comparison Of Chiplets Vs. eFPGA


FPGA is widely popular in systems for its flexibility and adaptability. Increasingly, it is being used in high volume applications. As volumes grow, system designers can consider integration of the FPGA into an SoC to reduce cost, reduce power and/or improve performance. There are two options for integrating FPGA into an SoC: FPGA chiplets, which replace the power hungry SERDES/PHYs wit... » read more

Setting Up An Embedded Development Board For Cloud-Based IoT Service


Everyday there are new devices appearing in homes, offices, hospitals, factories and thousands of other places that are part of the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Clearly, they need to be connected to the internet and there is a need for a huge amount of raw data to be collected, stored and processed on the cloud. There are many data centers available to store the data. However, only some provide... » read more

Increasing eFPGA Density


How to boost embedded FPGA density to the point where it is competitive with traditional FPGAs, at a lower cost and faster turnaround time. Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks about the importance of interconnects and standard cells in adding flexibility into chips, and why eFPGAs are suddenly gaining attention. » read more

ML Opening New Doors For FPGAs


FPGAs have long been used in the early stages of any new digital technology, given their utility for prototyping and rapid evolution. But with machine learning, FPGAs are showing benefits beyond those of more conventional solutions. This opens up a hot new market for FPGAs, which traditionally have been hard to sustain in high-volume production due to pricing, and hard to use for battery-dri... » read more

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