“We are developing new technologies in several areas”
( 01 May 2006 )
by Mario Pereira, Hong Kong Correspondent
EDN Asia spoke to John East, CEO and President of Actel Corp., about tool innovations. Excerpts.
Qns: Could you elaborate on fusion technology from a design engineer’s perspective?
John East: Actel’s new fusion technology is the industry’s first to integrate mixed-signal analog capabilities with Flash memory and FPGA fabric in a monolithic programmable system chip. It is the world’s first mixed-mode FPGA and Actel is ushering in the era of the programmable system chip (PSC).
Fusion technology leverages Actel’s Flash-based FPGA technology, with its high-isolation, triple-well manufacturing process and support for high-voltage transistors, to address the multi-voltage support and noise issues characteristic of mixed-signal designs.
Fusion technology allows analog peripherals to be built in either hard- or soft-gate implementations. These peripherals can be reconfigured to perform very different functions by downloading data from embedded memory. This re-configurability gives designers an unprecedented level of flexibility. Fusion technology represents the ultimate soft-processor platform when used with Actel’s ARM7 and 8051-based soft MCU cores.
Qns: How will this technology enhance system performance and lower costs?
JE: As each design is unique, it is difficult to generalize on these savings. However, relative to either mixed-signal ASICs or FPGAs combined with discrete analog solutions, fusion-based FPGAs will offer the best of both. Fusion FPGAs will provide the single chip, small form factor, low power, and ease of design of an ASIC solution with the no NRE, reprogrammability, and time-to market advantages afforded by a discrete solution.
Qns: What benefits will fusion technology bring to application areas that until now have only been served by discrete analog component and mixed signal ASIC suppliers?
JE: By introducing fusion technology Actel is offering the first mixed signal FPGA. This means that we will be competing with mixed signal ASIC solutions and FPGA with discrete analog solutions currently used by system designers.
We have used a 130nm high-speed logic with embedded Flash process for fusion devices. This is the same process technology used for our successful ProASIC3 products. This process provides us with high voltage transistors for analog circuit support and a triple well process, which gives us good noise immunity, for the combined analog and digital components on our monolithic device.
Qns: Fusion technology will enable designers to design at both very high and very low levels of abstraction. How is this possible?
JE: The Actel fusion PSCs bring the benefits of programmable logic to application areas, including power management, smart battery charging, clock generation and management and motor control, that until now have only been served by either costly and space consuming discrete analog components or mixed-signal ASIC solutions. The Actel fusion devices provide an excellent alternative to costly and time-consuming mixed signal ASIC design. In addition, when used in conjunction with Actel’s ARM7 and 8051-based soft MCU cores, the Actel fusion technology represents the definitive PSC platform.
Qns: What kind of flexibility will designers get by using this new technology?
JE: With the Actel fusion PSC we are removing the handcuffs from system architects and allowing them to focus on adding unique features and enhancing end product value. Designers will be able to treat fusion PSCs like a mixed signal ASIC without all the ASIC penalties of long design cycles and high costs.
Qns: Actel is also developing a series of major tool innovations to maximize designer productivity. Could you elaborate on these innovations?
JE: The combination of the Actel fusion PSC and the Actel Libero 7.0 integrated design environment (IDE) enables an unprecedented convergence of digital logic, analog functionality, embedded Flash memory and field programmable gate array (FPGA) fabric on a single chip. Actel’s Libero 7.0 IDE brings together innovative new tools to generate, configure, interconnect and map intellectual property (IP) to the fusion fabric. Highly f lexible and easy-to-use, Libero’s graphical environment enables designers to “pick-and-click” specific options to generate and configure complex mixed-signal peripherals.
Qns: What new products are in the pipeline?
JE: Actel is developing new technologies in several areas: IP (intellectual property) that is used on the fusion parts, software tools for rapid design development and deployment, and embedded (soft) processor cores (ARM7 and 8051).
