FPGA Technology Overview

Carl Lebsack

* Some slides are from the “Programmable Logic” lecture slides by Dr. Morris Chang

What’s an FPGA?

FPGA – Field Programmable Gate Array

Standard

Logic

Logic

ASIC

Full custom

ICs

Cell-Based

ICs

Gate

Arrays

Programmable

Logic Devices

FPGAsCPLDsSPLDs FPICs

How do you make a “Programmable” circuit?One time programmable Fuses (destroy internal links with current) Anti-fuses (grow internal links) PROM

Reprogrammable EPROM EEPROM Flash SRAM - volatile

} non-volatile

How do you program an FPGA?

Create a circuit design Graphic circuit toolVerilogVHDLAHDL

Compile the design for the selected deviceDownload the compiled configuration

FPGAs offer many advantages over ASICs

Small development overhead

No NRE (non-recurring engineering) costs

Quick time to market

No minimum quantity order

Reprogrammable

What are the Guts of an FPGA?

Basic ComponentsLUT (look-up-table)Flip-FlopsMultiplexors I/O BlocksProgrammable switching matrices InterconnectClocks

Configurable Logic Blocks

I/O Blocks

Programmable Interconnects

Xilinx FPGA Structure

CMOS SRAM Cell

Read orWrite

Data

QQ

3-LUT

01101001

input[0:2]

output

config_in

clock

config_out

2 Slice CLB

LE

LAB

DIBCKE

CLB0

X

Y

CE A

D R

DIBCKE

CLB1

X

Y

CE A

D R

DIBCKE

CLB2

X

Y

CE A

D R

DIBCKE

CLB3

X

Y

CE A

D R

SwitchingMatrix

Global Vertical

Long Line

GeneralPurpose Lines

Hor izontalLong Line

DirectConnections

IOB

More Guts

Additional componentsRAM blocksDedicated multipliersTri-state buffersTransceiversProcessor coresDSP blocks

Dedicated Arithmetic Structures in FPGAs

AlteraXilinx

QuickLogic

Power PC in Virtex-II Pro

• Embedded 300+ MHz Harvard Architecture Core• Low Power Consumption: 0.9 mW/MHz• Five-Stage Data Path Pipeline• Hardware Multiply/Divide Unit• Thirty-Two 32-bit General Purpose Registers• 16 KB Two-Way Set-Associative Instruction Cache• 16 KB Two-Way Set-Associative Data Cache• Memory Management Unit (MMU)

- 64-entry unified Translation Look-aside Buffers (TLB)- Variable page sizes (1 KB to 16 MB)

• Dedicated On-Chip Memory (OCM) Interface• Supports IBM CoreConnect™ Bus Architecture• Debug and Trace Support• Timer Facilities

Excalibur Embedded Solution

ExcaliburProcessor

Logic

HighPerformance

I/O

Memory

Complete SOPC Solution

• Integrates Embedded Processors With Programmable Logic Device

• Delivers System-on-a-Programmable-Chip (SOPC)─ Programmable Flexibility

• PLD Hardware

• Embedded Software

─ Compute Performance

• High Performance Processor

• Data Path Hardware

─ Customer Configuration

• Microprocessor Peripherals

• Hardware Logic

─ Faster Time-to-Market

ARM in Excalibur

• Industry-standard ARM922T 32-bit RISC processor core operating up to 200MHz

─ ARMv4T instruction set with Thumb extensions

─ Memory management unit (MMU) included for real-time operating systems (RTOS) support

─ Harvard cache architecture with 64-way set associative separate 8-Kbyte instruction and 8-Kbyte data caches

• Embedded programmable on-chip peripherals

─ ETM9 embedded trace module to assistant software debugging

─ Flexible interrupt controller

─ Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)

─ General-purpose timer

─ Watchdog timer

Altera DSP-Block-Configuration Options and Features

FPGAs come in a wide variety

Xilinx Slices/CLBs PowerPC cores

Altera LEs/LABs ARM cores/Softcores

Numbers of subcomponents varies

Special features vary

Manufacturers use own terminology

Feature EP1S10 EP1S20 EP1S25 EP1S30 EP1S40 EP1S60 EP1S80 EP1S120

Logic Elements (LEs) 10,570 18,460 25,660 32,470 41,250 57,120 79,040 114,140

M512 RAM Blocks( 512 Bits + Parity)

94 194 224 295 384 574 767 1,118

M4K RAM Blocks(4 Kbits + Parity)

60 82 138 171 183 292 364 520

M512 RAM Blocks(512 Kbits + Parity)

1 2 2 4 4 6 9 12

Total RAM bits 920,448 1,669,248 1,944,576 3,317,184 3,423,744 5,215,104 7,427,520 10,118,016

DSP Blocks 6 10 10 12 14 18 22 28

Embedded Multipliers 48 80 80 96 112 144 176 224

PLLS 6 6 6 10 12 12 12 12

Maximum User I/O Pins 426 586 706 726 822 1,022 1,238 1,314

Engineering Sample Availability

NowUse

ProductionUse

ProductionN/A Now N/A Now 2003

Production Device Availability

March2003

Now Now NowMarch 2003

April

2003

January 2003

2003

Stratix Device Overview

FPGA Design

Main components are generally done as custom designs

Layout is very regular and automation could assist in cell placement

Stratix FPGA Layout

year 1995 1996 1997 2000 2003 2004 ?

Technology 0.6µ 0.35 µ 0.25 µ 0.18 µ 0.13 µ 0.07µ

Gate count 25K 100K 250K 1 M

100K LC*

8Mb RAM

400 18X18 multipliers

Transistor count

3.5M 12M 23M 75M 430M 1B

PLD device density and VLSI technology

*note: Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP100 (9/16/2003)

More Information

www.xilinx.com

www.altera.com