FPGA board prototypes space designs

Flash-based prototyping board eases application of radiation-tolerant antifuse-based RTAX-S FPGAs from Actel.

New from Aldec is the RTAX-S prototyping board for radiation-tolerant RTAX-S FPGAs from Actel Corporation.

Easing the prototyping process of space-flight systems, the new RTAX-S prototyping board provides the flexibility Actel's Flash-based ProASIC3 FPGAs offer, allowing designers to use a design across multiple aerospace projects, shorten design cycles and lower project costs.

Together with automatic primitives conversion and reusability of the board, Aldec's early prototyping solution addresses challenges aerospace engineers may face during the verification process of a complex antifuse-based design.

"Designers have asked for a quick, straightforward way to prototype radiation-tolerant designs in Actel's antifuse-based RTAX-S FPGAs", says Dr Stanley Hyduke, President of Aldec.

"Aldec responded with a complete and reliable solution based on Actel's ProASIC3 Flash-based FPGAs that will simplify the prototyping path of such designs".

Rich Brossart, Vice President, Product Marketing at Actel said: "For easy and rapid early prototyping of Actel's space-optimised RTAX-S FPGAs, Aldec's solution uses ProASIC3 FPGAs, allowing customers to tap the flexibility and reprogrammability of Flash-based prototypes for multiple applications".

"As a result, Aldec's solution can accelerate design and validation cycles, which translates into faster time to market and lower development costs".

Substituting reprogrammable parts for the fuse-based devices requires appropriate library conversions.

The primitives library conversion utility is provided with Active-HDL, a mixed-language simulator that is included with the RTAX-S prototyping board.

The utility allows automatic conversion of primitives from one library (eg RTAX-S) to another (eg ProASIC3).

RTAX-S designs not using library specific primitives or memories can be implemented to different architecture without any modifications.

Otherwise, primitives and memories should be replaced manually or supplied as a customer service.

The prototyping adapter board allows easy and inexpensive RTAX-S designs prototyping with Flash devices.

The reprogrammable ProASIC3 chip on the top of the adapter allows implementing design changes easily, eliminating the need to solder/unsolder the adapter from the prototyping board each time the design is being changed.

The JTAG connector next to the ProASIC3 device allows reprogramming of the adapter on the fly.

The power connector provided on the top of the adapter board allows programming of the adapter without soldering it to the PCB.

Bottom part of the adapter is footprint-compatible with RTAX-S device allowing soldering the adapter board to the PCB as a regular RTAX-S device.

The adapter board can be soldered/unsoldered several times, thus can be used for different projects.

The prototyping solution provides engineers with a complete prototyping and verification toolset, comprising: the Aldec Active-HDL (Designer Edition) mixed-language simulator; the Aldec library primitives conversion utility (built-in Active-HDL); the Actel Libero integrated design environment (IDE) - Gold edition; the reusable FPGA-based prototyping adapter board with Actel's ProASIC3 FPGA; and a FlashPro3 programmer.

The prototyping adapter is available today in two packages.

For US $4995, the full prototyping bundle includes Active-HDL (Design Edition) mixed VHDL and Verilog, built-in library primitives' conversion utility, Actel Libero integrated design environment, prototyping adapter and FlashPro3 programmer.

The prototyping adapter alone costs $3495, including the FlashPro3 programmer.

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