Prototyping for Industrial Applications [Industry Forum]

An FPGA is a good vehicle for creating a prototyping system for checking out an industrial product concept and functionality. High nonrecurring engineering (NRE) cost makes an ASIC suitable only for very high-volume products, such as handheld game terminals and cellular phones. For medium-volume products, the HardCopy ASIC is a lower-cost and lower-power replacement for an FPGA. The HardCopy ASIC is a custom device that is created by incorporating the advantages of an ASIC into an FPGA by removing the resources that are not required in the final device. The power and performance of Hard-Copy ASICs are comparable to those of standard-cell ASICs. Altera's design software enables a single-toolset transition from an FPGA to the HardCopy ASIC.