Non-volatile FPGA in a small package

Maybe if you tell it exactly what primitives you want you can do it.

But the obvious case of simply writing HDL code that uses a non-clock input as a clock, fails. Wheras it works on X or A - albeit with warnings.

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cs_posting
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Fair enough.

It would have been more accurate for me to say that Actel's Flash FPGAs are immune to configuration loss due to single-event errors.

In the interest of thoroughness, Actel's Flash FPGAs *have* undergone substantial FIT testing and are quite resilient (compared to SRAM devices) in terms of their alpha and neutron radiation handling:

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cheers, K.

Reply to
Kris Vorwerk

Hi,

I apologize if this gets double-posted; I think that Google Groups may have eaten my first reply. (So this is attempt #2 :)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "less integrated" -- Actel's toolflow is completely integrated inside the Libero GUI, and is also completely automatable/scriptable from the command line, using TCL scripts. (While the toolflow *does* use Synplify for RTL synthesis, this is often viewed as a strong point due to the high quality of results achievable using Synplicity's software.)

Work is being done all the time to improve the runtime and performance of the designs produced by the toolsuite; if you have a strangely-slow case, I would urge you to bring this to Actel's attention so that engineering can take a look at it.

I believe that the FlashPro programmer comes with most of the Starter Kits, which I've always found were pretty well-priced. (I think that you can also purchase the standalone programmer separately, but to be honest, I don't recall its price or how it compares to other companies.)

That said, if you've encountered any strange, slow-programming cases, you should bring it to Actel's attention.

Not true :) I/Os in Proasic/Fusion/Igloo can be configured for numerous different I/O standards and have various features, including low power mode, internal pull-up resistors, Schmitt trigger for inputs, and selectable drive strength and slew rate.

Not true :) In general, non-clock I/Os in Proasic/Fusion/Igloo can drive internal clock buffers from basically any input. (There are some minor caveats where only certain I/Os can be used when employing specialized features, like quadrant clocks and certain PLL configurations and/or I/O bank configurations.)

Incremental trials in hardware are certainly encouraged :) Actel's Flash products are reprogrammable, and in practice, the toolflow is heavily optimized for high-quality, fast runtime. Again, if you've encountered an oddly slow case, it can't hurt to bring it to Actel's attention so that the problems can be looked and rectified.

(Also, a minor point of note -- I don't know if Synopsis' tools work with Libero. I know that Synplicity's Synplify ships with all versions of Libero, and some versions are also compatible with Magma's Palace software.)

cheers, K.

Reply to
Kris Vorwerk

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