Product category:
Intellectual Property Cores
News Release from: Actel Europe | Subject: Fusion PSC calibration IP
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 11 March 2008
Programmable devices add ADC calibration
Fusion PSC calibration intellectual property eliminates the additional discrete ADCs and prescalers often required to achieve higher levels of accuracy.
Actel has added an enhanced software-based calibration capability to its mixed-signal Fusion programmable system chips (PSCs) With A/D convertor accuracy as high as 0.53%, the new Fusion PSC calibration intellectual property (IP) solution eliminates the additional discrete ADCs and prescalers often required to achieve this level of accuracy
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 23 Apr 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
First flash-based industrial-grade FPGAs
Actel is shipping the industry's first flash-based "live-at-power-up" FPGA devices qualified to industrial specifications.
Largest-yet claim for flash-based FPGAs
Actel is sampling the A500K180 and A500K270 flash-based ProASIC 500K gate FPGAs with 369,000 and 473,000 system gates, respectively.
Combined with the integration benefits offered by innovative mixed-signal Fusion PSCs, the easy-to-use calibration option offers customers greater accuracy, lower system power, reduced design complexity, flexibility and more features than those offered by most discrete solutions.
"Designers of system management and industrial control applications must manage growing noise and interference to achieve stringent accuracy and precision levels", says Ravi Pragasam, Senior Manager, Product Marketing at Actel.
"Traditionally, this was managed by using multiple discrete devices, which increases power consumption, noise and cost".
Further reading
Libero sweeps up full set of FPGA design tools
Libero is Actel's next-generation integrated design environment for field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development and design.
FPGAs have hardened latches for space reliability
Actel has qualified and is shipping its RT54SX32S FPGA, the first member of its radiation-tolerant RTSX-S family specifically designed to address single-event upsets (SEUs) in space.
"However, the best scenario is a mixed-signal PSC capable of supporting a calibration scheme - both in software and without the use of external components - to enable an easier design implementation, improve accuracy, lower overall power consumption, and increase signal integrity".
The mixed-signal Actel Fusion PSC includes unique calibration coefficients preloaded into the device.
For customers who require accuracy levels better than 1%, the new two-point calibration scheme leverages several unique features available in the Fusion PSC.
The programmable logic and the analogue quad measure the offset and gain coefficients.
The embedded flash memory blocks store offset and gain coefficients during test.
The soft calibration IP core made of logic gates accesses the coefficients and applies them to the measurements in real time to achieve the highest level of accuracy.
Using the appropriate prescaler range for a specific monitored voltage, designers leveraging Fusion PSCs can achieve accuracy levels better than one%.
For example, when using the 16V prescaler range to monitor a 12V input, the ADC accuracy would be 1.47% without calibration versus 0.53% with calibration.
Unlike traditional FPGAs, Actel's award-winning, mixed-signal Fusion PSCs incorporate analogue functions, embedded Flash and FPGA fabric in a single chip.
For embedded applications, the combination of Fusion PSCs and industry-leading soft cores, such as the ARM Cortex-M1 processor and 8051 microcontroller, enable intelligent system and power management resulting in increased energy efficiency, making this a compelling low-cost and flexible solution for a variety of telecommunications and industrial control applications.
The mixed-signal Actel Fusion PSC devices with the enhanced calibration feature are currently supported by the Actel Libero IDE v8.2 SP1.
• Actel Europe: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
