The portable electronics market is experiencing rapid growth driven by
the benefits of added convenience and increased productivity. Portable
electronics design is becoming more challenging as new product revisions
require additional features and improved performance while demand for longer
battery life increases. These demands in the portable market include low
active and static power consumption, ultra-low power mode support, small
footprint packages, higher integration, and low cost.
Actel offers the optimal solution for your portable design with its FPGAs,
solutions, and IPs.
Key Benefits
- Extend battery life with Actel's IGLOO devices,
the industry's lowest power FPGAs
- Flexible system implementation options allow system power reduction
- Small-footprint packages help minimize board size (as small as 4x4
mm)
- Single-chip implementation offers lowest total system cost
- Secure in-system programmability protects your intellectual property
- Wide range of feature-rich devices and low-power turnkey solutions
- ARM® Cortex™-M1 processor
and Fusion mixed-signal FPGA
support allows higher integration and system power optimization
Storage
Actel
and its partners offer multiple validated and proven IP cores for quick
and easy integration of storage interfaces on flash FPGAs. The ability
to support different storage interfaces on the same hardware platform can
help target multiple markets by simply changing the FPGA configuration.
» Learn
More
Display and Imaging
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. » Learn More
Human Interface and Control
Different
and ever-changing human interface support can be easily achieved using
proven IP cores from Actel. Implementing the interface on IGLOO FPGAs reduces
time-to-market while helping customize the end product and meeting customer
preferences.
| Technology Solutions |
 |
Offering the industry's lowest power programmable, IGLOO ultra-low
power FPGAs are the only low-power FPGA solution to support 1.2 V core
operation extending the battery life more than 10x compared to leading
devices. » More |
 |
Actel's flash FPGAs are single chip and single voltage and do not
require additional components for proper FPGA operation. |
 |
The flash FPGA configuration cannot be read back or exposed, which
secures the company's IP, brand, and business. Actel flash FPGAs support
secured In-System Programmability (ISP) features that help implement
secure remote-field upgrade and up-sell changes. » More |
 |
Flash FPGAs are already configured at power-up, which results in
immediate system operation, as the device helps in system supervisory
tasks. The IGLOO FPGA's ability to enter and exit Flash*Freeze mode
within 1 µs provides immediate power savings with rapid wake-up
on user demand. » More |
| Lowest
Unit and Total System Cost |
The integration of high-end features in a single-chip flash-based
FPGA fabricated on an advanced process geometry leads to low unit cost
and the lowest total system cost compared to other PLDs. » More |
| System
Management |
ARM-enabled IGLOO and Fusion devices allow for cost-effective system
power and thermal management by controlling and monitoring power supplies
for total system power considerations at the board level. » More |
| Flexible
Implementation |
The Flash*Freeze technology used in IGLOO devices enables easy entry
and exit from ultra-low power mode, which consumes as little as 5 µW,
while retaining SRAM and register data. |
| Feature-Rich |
Reprogrammable FPGAs offers a variety of logic densities and features,
such as PLL, RAM, and user nonvolatile memory, which help get designs
to market on time. |
| Small
Footprint Packages |
Actel supports a variety of small footprint packages as small as
4x4 mm, which allow high I/O density in a minimal board space. |
Intellectual Property
Actel offers a range of IP
cores for the development of portable applications, including the
new ARM Cortex-M1 FPGA processor. These flexible cores can be implemented
in either Verilog or VHDL and are available for free in CoreConsole. » Search
for Portable IP cores.
Actel Comprehensive Power Analysis Tools
Actel
provides accurate, comprehensive power analysis tools for its FPGAs and
offers accurate prediction that gives straightforward analysis of design
options to help meet your portable system needs. The pre-netlist Power
Calculator tool helps in analyzing design implementation options for
rapid power analysis scenarios and design partitioning. The netlist-based SmartPower tool
can help in quickly managing and optimizing portable design to the product's
lowest power capabilities. This power analysis tool provides a comprehensive
interface to easily realize 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 optimize FPGA power and behavior to reduce
total system power.
Learn more about Libero
IDE flows and tools.
Actel Hardware Platforms
Actel
and its partners offer a variety of development and evaluation platforms
to allow quick and easy portable design. Actel's IGLOO
Starter Kit demonstrates the low-power capabilities of the device,
including low-power static, active, and Flash*Freeze mode operation. The
starter kit also has the ability to operate the IGLOO device with 1.2 V
or 1.5 V.
In
addition, Actel and its partners provide several hardware
platforms to evaluate common interfaces used in portable electronics
and integrate proven IP cores into their final design. These platforms
offer the benefits of rapid prototyping, rapid time-to-market, and reduced
design time and costs.
For IGLOO-related documents, visit the IGLOO
Documentation page.
Product Information Brochures (PIB)
Selector Guides
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