Date: 3rd Mar 2010

Actel packs programmable analog blocks in its FPGAs called SmartFusion

When the industry is presented with hyper programmable logic device technology from a startup company called Tabula, another FPGA vendor Actel who is known in offering less-expensive but reliable FPGAs has announced their new FPGA product family called SmartFusion, where they have integrated few analog and mixed signal functions on chip. Actel claims this is the world's first intelligent mixed signal FPGA.

Immediately available in production volumes, the SmartFusion device packs FPGA fabric, microcontroller subsystem based on hard ARM Cortex-M3 processor and programmable analog blocks on a flash process.

Actel says embedded system designers no longer have to compromise. Now, they can easily build the system they want, with all the features they need, on a single chip.

This device is close to Cypress Semiconductor's PSoC family of programmable devices, which has MCU, analog, and programmable logic.

"SmartFusion gave us the resources to build a highly-agile smartgrid sensor with greater flexibility in a smaller package," said David Brain, CTO Smartgrid Technologies. "The integration of a state-of-the-art embedded ARM processor with on-chip analog to digital conversion and the ability to build custom features in the uncommitted gate array is an unbeatable combination."

"The launch of Actel's SmartFusion represents a step forward in intelligent FPGA design and also demonstrates the rapidly growing momentum behind the ARM Cortex-M3 processor in a wide range of applications," said Eric Schorn, vice president, marketing, processor division, ARM. "In addition to exploiting the Cortex-M3 processor's industry leading high-performance and low-power features, SmartFusion licensees are also able to access ARM's vast ecosystem of more than 600 Partners, providing tools, software and middleware optimized for the ARM architecture."

The suggested applications for this family include motor control, system and power management and industrial automation. These applications span the industrial, military, medical, telecommunications, computing and storage markets.

"SmartFusion is the innovative, intelligent integration of the key components of a system," said John East, Actel's president and CEO. "Due to Actel's flash technology, we now offer the industry's first and only no-compromise, fully programmable platform for embedded design."

Microcontroller Subsystem features and specifications:
Features a hard ARM Cortex-M3 processor running at 100 MHz. A full complement of standard peripherals and features include:
Multi-layer AHB communications matrix with up to 16 Gbps throughput
10/100 Ethernet MAC with RMII interface
Two of each: SPI, I2C, UART, 32-bit timers
Up to 512 KB flash memory and 64 KB of SRAM
External memory controller (EMC)
8-channel DMA controller

Programmable Analog features and specifications:
The innovative and proprietary Analog Compute Engine (ACE) performs sample sequencing and computation, which offloads the ARM Cortex-M3 processor from analog initialization and processing. The programmable analog system features:
ADCs and DACs with 1 percent accuracy
Up to three 12-bit ADC with up to 600 Ksps sampling rate
Up to three 12-bit first order sigma delta DACs
Up to ten 50 ns high-speed comparators
Multiple integrated temperature, voltage and current monitors

Learn more at www.actel.com