Actel's Fusion, ProASIC3, and IGLOO families are all based on Actel's third generation flash architecture. So what do they have in common? They all share characteristics inherent to a true flash-based FPGA that you won't find on SRAM or nonvolatile SRAM FPGAs.

To compete with Actel's True Flash FPGA technology, competitors claim their devices are "flash-based" and try to mimic the technology with a combination of various memory components combined with their underlying SRAM FPGA technology. However, the limitations of SRAM devices continue to manifest themselves in the parts they claim as "flash devices."

True Flash FPGAs are a unique combination of nonvolatility and reprogrammability within a single-chip, providing a simple, secure, reliable, low power, SER immune solution, with very cost-effective implementation.

The fact is, the advantages of a True Flash FPGA solution cannot be mimicked.

Actel's Flash FPGA devices are:

One chip is all you need with a true flash architecture. Since the devices remain programmed when you power down, they are completely live at power-up, with no internal configuration required while the rest of the system waits. Flash technology is inherently lower power than other FPGA technologies—5 μW is simply the best out there.

Advantages of Flash FPGAs

Actel also offers the highest security of any FPGA with 128-bit AES decryption on chip and no configuration data stream to hack. And if you are familiar with firm errors, Actel devices are immune to those as well. Actel has been supplying nonvolatile FPGAs since 1988 and flash FPGAs since 1999. Other FPGA vendors are now endeavoring to imitate the benefits of our truly nonvolatile flash-based FPGAs. This serves only to validate what Actel has been producing for years...single-chip flash-based FPGAs.