The portable electronics market is experiencing rapid growth, driven by the benefits of added convenience and increased productivity. Using battery-operated electronic systems, information can be displayed in the field in realtime, without the need for centrally located, bulky, wired devices.
Portable electronics design is becoming more challenging as new product revisions require additional features and improved performance, while demand for longer battery life increases. Furthermore, extremely competitive markets and continuously evolving standards result in shortened product life cycles, requiring flexible platforms to accommodate these changes. Actel offers an optimised solution for portable designs with its FPGAs, design solutions and intellectual properties (IP). Validated and proven solutions and IP enable quick development of portable designs with solutions supporting storage, display and imaging, human interface and controls.
Actel's IGLOO low-power Flash FPGAs are ideal for the portable market, as they offer low active and static power consumption, ultra-low power mode support, small footprint packages and low cost. Combined with reprogrammability and high-end features, Actel enables fast time-to-market with turnkey low-power solutions. Fusion mixed-signal FPGAs and ARM-enabled devices allow power management by controlling and monitoring power supplies.
Breakdown of a typical portable electronic device
1. Application processing - Low-power operation and control
Cortex-M1-enabled Fusion, IGLOO and ProASIC3 FPGAs allow high integration and balance between size, cost and performance. Based on the industry standard 32-bit architecture, Cortex-M1 IGLOO devices are secure Flash-based platforms that offer ultra-low power, high capacity, advanced I/Os, and 1,2 V or 1,5 V operation. Cortex-M1 devices are available from Actel with no licence fees or royalties.
2. Storage - Interface to multiple standards
Actel and its partners offer multiple validated and proven IP cores for integration of storage interfaces on Flash FPGAs. This enables bridging between the processor and storage standard required. The ability to support different storage interfaces on the same hardware platform can help target multiple markets by changing only the FPGA configuration.
3. Motor/servo control
Control of a motor can be easily implemented using a Fusion mixed-signal FPGA, benefiting from the integration of logic and analog capabilities in a single device, which leads to a cost-effective and small footprint implementation of motor control circuitry.
4. Security - IP protection, data and voice encryption
Some portable applications require the use of data or voice encryption for secured communication. Actel offers several IP cores that allow quick integration into a low-power, reprogrammable Flash FPGA. Flash FPGAs allow the integration of customer proprietary IP and security keys in one device, utilising secured Flash technology and user non-volatile memory.
5. Communication - Wireless and wired interfaces
The ability to support multiple communication interface standards, such as FireWire, WiFi, Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth and others, makes FPGAs suitable for portable electronics, offering the benefits of rapid development, fast time-to-market and integration. IGLOO Flash FPGAs support a variety of communication IP cores from Actel and its partners, serving the most demanding applications.
6. Human interface - Keypads, scroll wheels, buttons, switches
Different and ever-changing human interface support can be achieved using proven IP cores. Implementing the interface on IGLOO FPGAs reduces time-to-market while helping customise the end product and meet customer preferences.
7. Display and imaging - LCD, touchscreen, LEDs
Many LCD types and interfaces are used in portable electronics to meet preference and price, placing a challenge on the design, which needs to support all types of displays using a modular board. Many display and imaging interfaces can be implemented using low power reprogrammable FPGAs, allowing interaction with multiple types of LCDs by changing only the FPGA configuration. Furthermore, timing control and image manipulations can be implemented on the same FPGA and modified as needed.
8. Power management - System power control, power sequencing
Fusion mixed-signal FPGAs manage system power efficiently by controlling and monitoring power rails and powering down unused functions while the system is idle. IGLOO devices support Flash*Freeze mode, an ultra-low power mode that reduces power consumption to as low as 5 μW. Furthermore, IGLOO FPGAs can be used to supervise and control the system and wait for a user stimulus while other devices are powered down, consuming little power and operating with a low frequency clock.
Actel hardware platforms
Actel and its partners offer a variety of development and evaluation platforms to allow quick and easy portable design. The IGLOO Starter Kit demonstrates the low-power capabilities of the device, including low-power static, active, and Flash*Freeze mode operation. The starter kit can operate the IGLOO device with 1,2 V or 1,5 V. In addition, several hardware platforms are available to evaluate common interfaces used in portable electronics and integrate proven IP cores into final designs. These platforms offer the benefits of rapid prototyping, rapid time-to-market and reduced design time and costs.
Actel comprehensive power analysis tools
Actel provides accurate, comprehensive power analysis tools for its FPGAs. Power analysis predicts the performance of a design to help meet portable system needs. The pre-netlist PowerCalculator tool helps in analysing design implementation options for rapid power analysis scenarios and design partitioning. The netlist-based SmartPower tool can help in managing and optimising portable design to the product's lowest power capabilities. This power analysis tool provides a comprehensive interface to realise the static power performance of the portable design. Power reports are broken down by net, gate, I/O, memory, clock, core static, instance and power rail. A design-level power summary includes average switching activity, ambient temperature and junction temperature readings, offering the ability to optimise FPGA power and behaviour to reduce total system power.
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