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After estimating the logic resources needed, the size of the system should become evident. Specifically, the type of FPGAs to use, the number of FPGAs needed, the interconnect requirements, and additional hardware such as external memories, controllers, analog circuitry etc., that will be added to the FPGA system. At this point in time, the decision whether to buy an off-the-shelf FPGA system or to develop it in-house must be made. Some of the important considerations are how well the system scales with design size changes and the potential reuse of the system for future prototyping projects, where the more “generic” the platform is, the more re-usable it will be in future projects.
As an example of the types of ready-made FPGA platforms available, Figure 46 shows a platform from a Synopsys HAPS ® (High-Performance ASIC Prototyping System) family of boards.
This example shows a HAPS board which has four Virtex-6 LX760 FPGAs, plus a smaller fifth FPGA, which is used to configure the board and also holds the supervisor and communications functions. There are other HAPS boards which have one or two LX760 devices each but with the same level of infrastructure as the board with four FPGAs. So we have the same resource in effect in three configurations i.e., single, double and quadruple FPGA modules which can operate independently or be combined into larger systems. The HAPS approach also includes different connectivity options and separate add-on boards for various hard IP, memory, and IO options.
Figure 46: Example of a ready-made FPGA platform, HAPS ® -64
The importance of such flexibility becomes apparent when platforms are to be reused across multiple prototyping projects. The options and the trade-offs between making project-specific boards and obtaining third-party ready-made boards like HAPS are described in more detail in the “Which platform?” chapters (5 and 6) so we shall not cover in any more detail here.
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories: FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Array)
Lifecycle:Obsolete -
RoHS: No RoHS
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories: High-frequency devices
Lifecycle:Any -
RoHS: -
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories:
Lifecycle:Obsolete -
RoHS: No RoHS
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories: FPGAs
Lifecycle:Active Active
RoHS:
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories:
Lifecycle:Obsolete -
RoHS: No RoHS
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