Low-cost, high-I/O-count FPGAs target display market

摘要

In an attempt to nab sockets in the market for low-cost, high-volume video displays, Xilinx has released an I/O-heavy version of its 90-nm Spartan-3 FPGAs. Before this release, Xilinx introduced a high-gate- and high-pin-count version of the device, the Spartan-3. The company then followed it up with a logic-heavy version, Spartan-3E. Now, the company is introducing its high-l/O-count Spartan-3A devices, targeting I/O-intensive applications, most notably, the emerging video-display market in mainland China. Mark Moran, senior strategic-marketing manager for the general-products division at Xilinx, says that the new 3A devices excel as bridging functions, in differential signaling, and as memory interfaces. Moran notes that, in many of today's applications, companies create one giant ASIC device for several product derivatives and then add functions and support to FPGAs in combination with the ASICs for new or emerging interfaces. Doing so allows users to keep the same footprint on a pc board but create derivatives or initiate field upgrades as needed.