Actel

Actel ProASIC3 Low Cost, Low Power FPGA Series Overview
 
Low-Power FPGAs

The ProASIC3 series of low cost, low power FPGAs, which includes ProASIC3/E, ProASIC3 nano, and ProASIC3L, offers a breakthrough in power, price, performance, density, and features for today's most demanding high-volume applications. ProASIC3 devices support the ARM® Cortex™-M1 soft processor IP core, offering the benefits of programmability and time-to-market at a cost as low as $0.49. The ProASIC3 families are based on nonvolatile flash technology and support 10,000 to 3,000,000 gates, up to 620 I/Os.

In addition to supporting portable, consumer, industrial, communications and medical applications with commercial and industrial temperature devices, Actel also offers ProASIC3 FPGAs with specialized screening for automotive and military systems.

Key Features
  • Low-power consumption
  • As low as $0.49 unit cost
  • Lowest total system cost
  • 1.2 V or 1.5 V support
  • Cost-optimized, reprogrammable, and nonvolatile
  • Supports 128-bit AES decryption for device configuration
  • Single chip and live at power-up
  • 1,024 bits of user flash memory
  • Advanced I/O structure
  • ARM Cortex-M1 processor support
  • Immune to configuration loss due to atmospheric neutrons (firm errors)
  • Available in automotive (T-Grade) and military temperature grade
  • ISO/TS 16949:2002 certified

The ProASIC3 series includes:

Device Comparison
ProASIC3 Series ProASIC3/E ProASIC3 nano ProASIC3L
ARM-Enabled M1 ProASIC3/E   M1 ProASIC3L
Overview The low-power, low-cost FPGA solution Lowest cost solution with enhanced I/O capabilities The FPGA that balances low power, performance, and low cost
System Gates 15,000 - 3,000,000 10,000 - 250,000 250,000 - 3,000,000
Max User I/Os 620 71 620
Power Consumption 3 mW 0.9 mW 0.4 mW

Third-Generation Architecture

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Total System Cost

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Design Software

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Libero IDE FPGA Development SoftwareLibero® Integrated Design Environment (IDE) is Actel's comprehensive software toolset for designing with IGLOO devices, enabling you to quickly manage and optimize your design to its lowest power capabilities and further reduce power consumption using automatic power-driven layout (PDL). Libero IDE's next generation SmartDesign tool ensures fast time-to-market with its advanced features for creation of simple designs or complex processor-based and bus-based designs. Libero IDE also includes cutting edge power analysis capability with SmartPower, which identifies specific points in the design where power can be reduced.

Actel's SoftConsole is a free software development environment, enabling the rapid production of C and C++ executables for ARM Cortex-M1 processors, and is compatible with the Libero IDE design flow.

ProASIC3 designs can be migrated to attain the low-power benefits of IGLOO devices, or new designs can be created from the start. Learn more about Libero IDE flows and tools.

Design Hardware

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The ProASIC3 Starter Kits provide complete evaluation solutions that enable quick evaluation and design prototyping of Actel ProASIC3 and Cortex-M1-enabled ProASIC3 low-cost, low-power FPGAs. The ProASIC3 Starter Kit is available in two versions, one for prototyping and one lower-cost version for simple evaluation.

The IGLOO nano Starter Kit may be used to prototype designs for ProASIC3 nano low-cost, low-power FPGAs, since IGLOO nano and ProASIC3 nano devices are footprint-compatible.

FlashPro3 is the ideal low-cost programmer for in-system programming of IGLOO low-power FPGAs. Up to 15 of these programmers may be cascaded in parallel via powered USB hubs to give a volume ISP solution for pre-assembled boards featuring IGLOO devices.

Silicon Sculptor 3 programmer is the ideal engineering pre-programmer for IGLOO low-power FPGAs, where each device may be programmed without having it assembled into a PCB. The Silicon Sculptor 3 includes a high-speed USB 2.0 interface that allows a customer to connect as many as 12 programmers to a single PC.

Identify Actel Edition (AE) logic analysis software from Synplicity provides embedded debug capbilities for IGLOO devices. It is included in the Libero IDE Windows DVD or is available for download.

IP and Solutions

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IP Cores Search for available IP Cores for each ProASIC3 device:

Technology Solutions
Low Power Solutions with Actel FPGAs Maximizes power savings with very limited power-on current surge and no high-current transition period, both of which occur on many FPGAs. Offers low dynamic power consumption.
Low Cost Starting at $0.49, the world’s lowest cost FPGA solution, offering industry-leading unit cost and lowest total system cost.
High Performance Enhanced, high-performance architecture up to 350 MHz operation and best-in-class logic utilization.
OneChip is all you need. Does not require additional configuration nonvolatile memory in order to load the device configuration data at every system power-up, which reduces cost and increases security and system reliability.
Secure ISP Supports built-in AES decryption engine and industry-leading flash-based AES-128 key for secure remote field updates over public networks with encrypted bitstream.
User Nonvolatile Memory 1,024 bits of on-chip, user accessible, nonvolatile FlashROM that can be used in diverse system applications.
Live at Power-Up Solution with Actel FPGAs Greatly simplifies system design, making the device available to perform critical system setup tasks and reduce bill-of-materials costs and PCB area.
Design Security Solutions with Actel FPGAs Utilizes a 128-bit flash-based lock and inherent flash technology features, providing the most impenetrable security for programmable logic designs. » More
Soft/Firm Errors Solutions with Actel FPGAs Flash cell configuration element cannot be altered by high-energy neutrons and is therefore immune, unlike SRAM-based FPGAs. » More
ARM Cortex-M1 Processor Uses industry-standard FPGA-optimized Cortex-M1 with no upfront licensing fees and royalties. » More