Editor's Choice


FPGAs speed up intelligent edge designs

25 October 2023 Editor's Choice DSP, Micros & Memory

Designing systems for the intelligent edge has never been more difficult. Market windows are shrinking, the costs and risks of new designs are rising, thermal constraints and reliability are twin priorities and the need for cradle-to-grave security continues to grow. Satisfying these simultaneous demands requires immediate knowledge of special technology and vertical-market expertise.

But designers can hit the ground running. Microchip Technology has added nine new technology- and application-specific solution stacks to its growing collection of mid-range FPGA and SoC support. The stacks span the industrial edge, smart embedded vision and edge communications.

“We’re making it much easier to create industry-leading industrial and communications designs,” said Shakeel Peera, vice president of strategy for Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “And our intelligent edge focus is getting significant traction with leading system designers because they get the full benefit of PolarFire FPGA’s unequalled power efficiency, security and reliability.”

“Size, weight and power are extremely important considerations in designing a thermal imaging system,” said Federic Aubrun, CCO of Xenics, a pioneer in infrared imaging, with best-in-class products for short-, mid- and long-wave IR imagers, cores and cameras. “Microchip SmartFusion and PolarFire FPGAs provide the best balance between small form factor, power efficiency and processing resources within an extremely low power budget in our current and next-generation products.”

Unlike alternatives that offer baseline support for overly broad application categories, PolarFire FPGA intelligent edge solution stacks are highly tailored to specific technologies and vertical-market requirements and include detailed intellectual property (IP), reference designs, development kits with sample designs, application notes, demo guides and more.

Microchip’s PolarFire family offers twice the power efficiency of FPGAs in its category, with the highest reliability and military-grade security. These FPGAs are the first RISC-V SoC FPGAs shipping in production volumes. PolarFire SoC devices create new configurable processing capabilities, and they are playing an integral role as computer workloads move to the power-sensitive intelligent edge.


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