Product category:
Programmable Logic Devices
News Release from: Actel Europe | Subject: ProASIC Plus
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 14 December 2004
Submarine duties for Flash-based FPGAs
Actel's Flash-based field-programmable gate arrays have been used by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in its advanced underwater seismograph.
Actel's Flash-based field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been chosen by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) for use in its advanced underwater seismograph The MBARI seismographs are located on the floor of Monterey Bay where they use analogue sensors to capture data, which are then stored on a hard disk drive
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 3 Feb 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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MBARI will use Actel's ProASIC Plus devices to handle a host of important functions in the underwater seismograph, including digital filtering of the ADC (analogue-to-digital convertor) signals and serving as the DMA (direct memory access) engine and the parallel IDE interface for the system's hard disk drive.
Actel's single-chip ProASIC Plus devices were chosen for their low-power operation and high reliability, which enable higher performance and a greater product lifespan for the MBARI seismographs.
"Our seismographs exist in an extremely harsh environment, at depths of several thousand feet, and cannot be serviced".
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"Therefore it was crucial that we select components to maximise the accuracy of our data, and the reliability and lifespan of our systems", said Wayne Radochonski, Senior Software Engineer, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
"The low quiescent current of Actel's ProASIC Plus devices was the primary reason for their selection as it provides tremendous benefits in power savings over previous designs".
"Being live at power-up, Actel's FPGAs avoid an inrush current spike upon power up, thus providing further power reduction for our battery-powered seismograph".
Martin Mason, Director, Flash Product Marketing at Actel, said: "David Packard founded MBARI in 1987 to conduct advanced research and education in ocean science and technology, and to do so through the development of better instruments, systems and methods for scientific research in the deep waters of the ocean".
"The inherent benefits of our Flash-based ProASIC Plus devices make them an ideal solution for challenging applications such as the MBARI seismographs, and we are pleased to be a part of this important environmental project".
Unlike SRAM-based FPGAs that must be programmed by off-chip memory, the ProASIC Plus devices are built on a nonvolatile Flash fabric which retains the design even when in a powered-down state, making them live at power-up and eliminating the need to be reconfigured from an external device during the power-up sequence.
Because there is no need for external configuration memory, Actel's Flash-based ProASIC Plus FPGAs require less area on the board, use less power than alternative solutions and help to simplify board and system design.
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