Microsemi expands mid-range FPGA series with IGLOO2
The company targets the FPGA family at industrial, commercial aviation, defence, communications and security applications. Microsemi says that the non-volatile flash-based IGLOO2 FPGAs have the highest number of mainstream FPGA features including general purpose input/outputs (GPIOs), 5G SERDES interfaces, and PCI Express endpoints of any similar device, and feature the industry’s only high-performance memory subsystem.
When compared to other 5G SERDES-based FPGAs under 150k logic elements (LEs), IGLOO2’s high level of integration provides the lowest total system cost while improving reliability, significantly reducing power and systematically protecting customers’ valuable design IP. The IGLOO2 FPGA family requires only two power supplies, versus three for competitive devices; its non-volatile configuration eliminates the requirement for external flash memory, providing the system architect with a higher level of system integration, performance and reliability.
IGLOO2 mainstream FPGAs feature a LUT-based fabric, 5G transceivers, high-speed GPIO, block RAM and DSP blocks in a differentiated, cost- and power-optimised architecture. The architecture offers up to five times more logic density and three times more fabric performance than the previous generation IGLOO family.
A high level of I/O and SERDES integration is necessary for I/O expansion, bridging, system management and co-processing, the company notes, allowing you to use smaller devices for I/O expansion and bridging solutions. This, coupled with the need for only two power supplies and no external configuration devices, reduces overall system cost and board complexity.
FPGA features are complemented by a built-in high-performance memory subsystem (HPMS) that embeds common user functions such as the industry’s largest monolithic embedded SRAM memory blocks. These memories provide fast, predictable low latency to time-critical embedded applications such as video, embedded graphics functions and real-time Ethernet. Included in the HPMS is up to 512 kBytes of flash memory which allows users to store system data such as Ethernet MAC IDs, user keys, system configuration and system personalisation data. This feature also enables secure boot functions for industry leading processors by storing secondary boot loaders securely on-chip. In addition, the HPMS integrates two DMA controllers and a two-port memory cache (DDR bridges) to efficiently move data within and in-and-out of IGLOO2 to external DDR3 memories for these embedded time critical applications.
Static power 10% that of comparable FPGAs comes via the Flash*Freeze real-time power management mode. The family includes built-in design security for all devices including root-of-trust applications. Additionally, IGLOO2 FPGAs provide SEU immunity due to the inherently reliable flash-based FPGA fabric, ideal for safety critical, mission critical and high temperature systems. Designers can use the Libero SoC software toolset for designing IGLOO2 FPGAs. The M2GL050 is shipping in volume production now with subsequent device configurations appearing throughout 2013 and early 2014. IGLOO2 FPGAs will be available in extended temperature offerings of up to 125C junction temperature. A low-cost IGLOO2 Evaluation Kit will be available in August 2013. Pricing for IGLOO2 starts at less than $7 for high volume orders.
IGLOO2 FPGAs, www.microsemi.com/igloo2-fpga
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