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Non-Commercial Version! Do not print, redistribute, or use in a commercial project. Contents FPGA FPGAs, or “Field Programmable Gate Arrays” show enormous promise for embedded systems - from ASIC C prototyping to medical to military to telecommunications. ONTENTS FPGAs are exciting and powerful! But they have their downside as well. This Insiders’ Guide outlines the FPGA ecosystem, provides an in-depth survey analysis, offers vendor interviews, and details the FPGA vendor community. S , T THE FPGA ECOSYSTEM FPGA SURVEY RESULTS EMAIL INTERVIEWS WITH KEY FPGA VENDORS OOLS EMAIL INTERVIEWS WITH KEY FPGA TOOLS VENDORS – O EMAIL INTERVIEWS WITH KEY FPGA BOARD VENDORS APPENDICES A. Top Internet Resources for FPGAs CTOBER B. New FPGA-related Products (last six months) , C. Vendor Guide: FPGA Manufacturers D. Vendor Guide: FPGA Tool Vendors AND E. Vendor Guide: FPGA Board Vendors F. Vendor Guide: FPGA / DSP Vendors G. Vendor Guide: FPGA Misc. & Services 1, 2007 B OARDS : Non-Commercial Version! Do not print, redistribute, or use in a commercial project. FPGA S , T EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OOLS FPGAs, or “Field Programmable Gate Arrays,” show enormous promise for embedded systems - from ASIC prototyping to medical to military to telecommunications applications. A savvy , engineer might consider FPGAs because of their processing power, their flexilibity and AND reprogrammability, their ability to combine and implement “intellectual property” (IP), or a litany of many reasons. FPGAs are exciting and powerful! But they have their downside as well: they B are notoriously difficult to program, have a relatively steep learning curve, and the “ecosystem” of OARDS providers, tools companies, media outlets, IP, and services around FPGAs is weakly developed. This Insider's Guide is here to help. First, it outlines the key issues in using FPGAs, identifying the top Internet resources and categorizing FPGA vendors by product offering. Second, a survey : T of FPGA “experts” and evaluators provides insights into what real engineers are doing (or trying ABLE OF to do) with FPGAs, alongside interviews with vendors of FPGA hardware, software, and/or services. Finally, appendices identify the most important Internet resources and classify companies by product offering. C ONTENTS COPYRIGHT, DISCLAIMER, LICENSE AGREEMENT © Copyright 2007, eg3.com. All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or cited in any form without express written consent of the publisher. This guide is considered a private communication between the purchaser / downloader and the publisher – no citation in public fora is intended or allowed. This document is not to be posted to corporate intranets or shared among users; users are encouraged to go to http://www.eg3.com/report-fpga/ to download their own personal copy. Disclaimer: every attempt has been made to obtain accurate information. However, due to the nature of technical information, this report represents tentative conclusions only and the publisher accepts no liability for any actions taken or conclusions drawn from this material. All users are advised to thoroughly research any FPGA-related choice and to conduct extensive due diligence on their own prior to purchasing or employing any particular FPGA, board, tool, and/or IP product. eg3.com® and eg3® are registered trademarks. All other marks are property of their respective owners. Any slights against persons or organizations are unintentional. Contact us at [email protected], or Tel. 510-713-2150 so that we can correct them. License agreement: No reproduction or further dissemination allowed. By downloading this guide, you agree to use only one copy per individual (individual license) or multiple copies per one single company (company license). You agree not to further copy, disseminate, email, post to a company intra or extranet, post to the Internet, cite in marketing or trade literature, or cite in published magazines. You agree that this document is for internal use only, and understand that all copies are marked with product watermarks to identify and hold responsible the original downloader. You understand that the report is delivered electronically in Adobe PDF format, not hard copy, and you understand that printing or viewing the report is your responsibility. You understand that the information contained in the report is the best available to eg3.com at the time of publication, but that errors and omissions may nonetheless occur. You agree to hold eg3.com harmless for the use of any information contained in this report, and you recognize your responsibility to do due diligence - further researching any product(s) that you may select for your design project(s). You understand that the guide is delivered as is and that no refunds are allowed for purchased copies. © Copyright 2007 – eg3.com – No Reproduction or Further Dissemination Allowed. 0.1 Non-Commercial Version! Do not print, redistribute, or use in a commercial project. The FPGA Ecosystem FPGA If the Internet were a city - a city of FPGA technology - what sites would you want to see? How would you know the lay of the land? What sites are the “most important?” What issues, tensions, and competitions organize the “FPGA ecosystem?” . INTERNET TOUR & OVERVIEW: WHY FPGAS? T S FPGA LEARNING SITES ON THE INTERNET HE , B THE FPGA ECOSYSTEM FPGA VENDORS FPGA E FPGA TOOLS OARDS FPGA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (“IP”) FPGA BOARDS COSYSTEM , AND T OOLS : Non-Commercial Version! Do not print, redistribute, or use in a commercial project. FPGA S , T EG3.COM INSIDERS' GUIDE: PHILOSOPHY OOLS , AND Who are the “insiders” in FPGA? Who really knows the technology in and out? If FPGAs were a city - who would be the best “guides?” Despite what the journalists at EE Times, FPGA Journal, B or Embedded Systems Design might say, the smartest people on FPGAs are the people who are OARDS already working with FPGAs. Or perhaps the vendors of FPGA hardware, tools, IP, or services. With all due respect to our fellow journalists, the real FPGA experts are not media reporters! As Woody Allen said, “Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym.” (h t t p : // w w w .humorsphere.com/movie_quotes/woody-allen.htm, 17 July 2007). Those who understand : T FPGAs, do FPGAs. Those of us who don't, consolidate information and write guides. HE • Our goal, therefore, is not to write the definitive guide to FPGAs but rather to help you FPGA E (the engineer, FPGA designer, or programmer) to understand the high level issues surrounding FPGAs and to identify the best jumping off places in the FPGA community for you to obtain useful information. As for FPGA “insiders,” there are two basic expert groups: COSYSTEM • Insider Group #1: the engineer users of FPGAs, i.e. your peers. Those who have gone before you and already used an FPGA in their design, a design tool, or a board. Included are also those currently considering FPGAs, i.e. at the first steps in their design cycles wrestlings with many of the issues common to FPGA newcomers. We shall call the first group “experts” and the second group, “newbies.” • Insider Group #2: the vendors of FPGA technologies. Companies like Xilinx, Altera, Lattice; software vendors like Celoxica, Altium, or Mentor Graphics; board makers like National Instruments, Bittware, Dini Group, or Pentek. We use surveys to tap the knowledge of the first group, and interviews to tap the knowledge of the second. In addition, we provide a brief introductory sketch of the FPGA ecosystem with lots of links to more information and cool sites on the Web. We hope you find this guide a useful “starting point” on your personal FPGA educational journey. Comments? Questions? Please contact us at [email protected] or Tel. 510-713-2150. WHO THIS GUIDE IS FOR This guide is first and foremost a guide for electronic design engineers considering FPGAs, FPGA tools, Intellectual Property (“IP”), and/or boards. It is for designers at the early phase of a design when they must try to understand all the hardware, software, and services available in the “FPGA ecosystem” and attempt to research the “best” choice of possible outside vendors. It is therefore for: • Engineers - anyone involved in FPGA design, tools, IP, or boards. • Managers - managers or engineering team managers whose design(s) involve FPGA technology We are sure that the FPGA vendor community will rush to download the guide, especially the survey, and use it to bolster (or challenge) their preconceived notions of how the FPGA ecosystem operates. They may find it interesting, but ultimately the guide is for practical engineers who want a single-stop to getting started with FPGAs. © Copyright 2007 – eg3.com – No Reproduction or Further Dissemination Allowed. 1.1 Non-Commercial Version! Do not print, redistribute, or use in a commercial project. FPGA S , T OOLS INTERNET TOUR & OVERVIEW: WHY FPGAS? , AND If the Internet were a city - a city of FPGA technology - what sites would you want to see? How B OARDS would you know the lay of the land? What sites are the “most important?” What issues, tensions, and competitions organize the “FPGA ecosystem?” Engineers are fond of Google, and rightly so, but a simple Google search for FPGA (h t t p : // w w w .google.com/search?hl=en&q=FPGA) returns over 11,000,000 results. The #3 result is an outdated site at the University of Idaho, and : T the #4 result is fpga4fun.com, a useful but basic hobbyist site (14 July 2007). HE If you were in Rome, or at the Prado museum in Madrid, Spain, you might hire a guide. Find a FPGA E resident who could quickly show you the highlights to which you could backtrack at the end of your tour for more detailed viewing. Here, then, are the highlights of the FPGA ecosystem.

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