Industry Expert Blogs

Most electrical engineers are familiar with FPGAs, and many have had experience using standalone FPGAs. eFPGA (embedded FPGA) technology allows a semiconductor company to embed an FPGA in an SoC or ASIC. The industry knows from bitter experience (40 defunct FPGA startups and counting) that programmable logic is not easy. The main stumbling block for FPGA startups has been the design environment, not the silicon. The simple fact is that the silicon is only as good as the tools that support it – they must be straightforward, robust, easy-to-use, and deliver excellent quality of results. As if that were not challenging enough, eFPGA products also exist in the ASIC design environment which uses a different tool flow. Thus a successful eFPGA must have an excellent silicon implementation, excellent ASIC tool support, and an excellent FPGA tool flow. Fortunately there are major benefits to embedding FPGA: lower power, higher performance, lower cost, improved future proofing and design flexibility.

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