User I/O in FPGA

FPGAs - Field Programmable Gate Arrays - are future-oriented building bricks which allow perfect customization of the hardware at an attractive price even in low quantities.

With an FPGA device on a computer board, it is possible to program parts of the I/O or even a complete microcontroller needed for dedicated control tasks of a specific application without touching the board layout.

FPGA components available now have usable sizes (for example Altera® Arria® with over 30,000 logic elements), support modern interconnects like PCI Express®, and their pricing is acceptable (starting from 20 Euro). This makes them effective factors for cost savings and time-to-market when making individual configurations of standard products.

A time consuming and expensive redesign of a board can often be avoided through application-specific integration of IP cores in the FPGA - an alternative for the future, especially for very specialized applications with only small or medium volumes.

Increased I/O flexibility for standard and custom computer boards, long-term availability and qualification for extended operating temperature make FPGAs a key technology for time- and cost-critical embedded applications.

For safety-critical applications in avionics, the internal memory structure of the FPGA must withstand cosmic radiation.