Current FPGA Technologies

Abstract

This chapter highlights the variety of different field‐programmable gate array (FPGA) technologies used for implementing digital signal processing (DSP) complex systems. These compare in terms of speed, power consumption and, of course, area (although this is a little difficult to ascertain for processor implementations). The chapter gives a brief historical perspective on FPGAs, describing how they have emerged from being a fine‐grained technology to a complex SoC technology, and describes the Altera Stratix® 10 FPGA family, the most powerful FPGA family that the company offers. Next, the chapter describes the FPGA technology offerings from Xilinx, specifically the UltraScale and Zynq FPGA families. The technologies offered by Microsemi and Lattice offer specific features that are very relevant in certain markets. For this reason, Lattice's iCE40isp family of small, low‐power, integrated mobile FPGAs, and Microsemi's RTG4, a radiation tolerant (RT) FPGA for signal processing applications, are described.