FPGA prototyping: Difference between revisions

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Verification methods for [[computer hardware|hardware]] design as well as early [[software]] and [[firmware]] co-design have become mainstream. Prototyping SoC and ASIC designs with one or more FPGAs and [[electronic design automation]] (EDA) software has become a good method to do this.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://numato.com/blog/differences-between-fpga-and-asics/|title=FPGA vs ASIC: Differences between them and which one to use? – Numato Lab Help Center|website=numato.com|date=July 17, 2018 |language=en-US|access-date=2018-10-17}}</ref>

==Importance==

==Why prototyping is important==

#Running a SoC design on FPGA prototype is a reliable way to ensure that it is functionally correct. This is compared to designers only relying on [[Electronic circuit simulation|software simulations]] to verify that their hardware design is sound. About a third of all current SoC designs are fault-free during first silicon pass, with nearly half of all re-spins caused by functional logic errors.<ref name ="soc">{{Cite web |url=http://www.soccentral.com/results.asp?CatID=596&EntryID=30794 |title=SOCcentral: Getting the Most Out of ASIC Prototyping with FPGAs (EE Times Programmable Logic Designline 30794) |access-date=October 9, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130202104923/http://www.soccentral.com/results.asp?CatID=596&EntryID=30794 |archive-date=February 2, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> A single prototyping platform can provide verification for hardware, firmware, and application software design functionality before the first silicon pass.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tayden.com/publications/Nanometer%20Prototyping.pdf|title=Nanometer prototyping|last=Rittman|first=Danny|date=2006-01-05|website=Tayden Design|access-date=2018-10-07}}</ref>

#[[Time to market|Time-to-market]] (TTM) is reduced from FPGA prototyping: In today's technological driven society, new products are introduced rapidly, and failing to have a product ready at a given market window can cost a company a considerable amount of [[revenue]].<ref name="reason">{{Cite web|url=http://www.design-reuse.com/articles/13550/fpga-prototyping-to-structured-asic-production-to-reduce-cost-risk-ttm.html|title=FPGA Prototyping to Structured ASIC Production to Reduce Cost, Risk & TTM|website=Design And Reuse|access-date=2018-10-07}}</ref> If a product is released too late ofin a market window, then the product could be [[Obsolescence|rendered useless]], costing the company its investment capital in the product. After the design process, FPGAs are ready for production, while [[Standard cell|standard cell ASICs]] take more than six months to reach production.<ref name = reason/>

#Development cost: Development cost of 90-nm ASIC/SoC design tape-out is around $20 million, with a mask set costing over $1 million alone.<ref name= soc/> Development costs of 45-nm designs are expected to top $40 million. With increasing cost of mask sets, and the continuous decrease of IC size, minimizing the number of re-spins is vital to the development process.

==Design for prototyping==

'''Design for prototyping'''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-technology/prototyping-system-designs-on-fpgas/32395/|title=Prototyping System Designs on FPGAs|date=2011-03-22|publisher=New Electronics|accessdate=2011-03-22|archive-date=March 6, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306210417/http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-technology/prototyping-system-designs-on-fpgas/32395/|url-status=dead}}</ref> ('''DFP''') refers to designing systems that are amenable to [[prototyping]]. Many of the obstacles facing development teams who adopt FPGA prototypes can be distilled down to three "laws":

* SoCs are larger than FPGAs

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Certus brings enhanced RTL-level visibility to FPGA-based debugging. It uses a highly efficient multi-stage concentrator as the basis for its observation network to reduce the number of LUTs required per signal to increase the number of signals that can be probed in a given space. The ability to view any combination of signals is unique to Certus and breaks through one of the most critical prototyping bottlenecks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tek.com/document/whitepaper/break-through-your-asic-prototyping-bottlenecks | title=Break Through Your ASIC Prototyping Bottlenecks| date= 2012-10-23|accessdate=2012-10-30}}</ref>

EXOSTIV uses large external storage and gigabit transceivers to extract deep traces from FPGA running at speed. The improvement lays in its ability to see large traces in time as a continuous stream or in bursts. This enables exploring extended debugging scenarios that can't be reached by traditional [[embedded instrumentation]] techniques. The solution claims saving both the FPGA I/O resources and the FPGA memory at the expense of gigabit transceivers, for an improvement of a factor of 100,000 and more on visibility.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.exostivlabs.com/why-exostiv/ | title=Why EXOSTIV?| date= 2015-10-14|accessdate=2015-11-25}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.exostivlabs.com/asic-soc-prototyping/ | title=ASIC/SoC Prototyping| accessdate=2020-04-12| archive-date=April 12, 2020| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412192151/https://www.exostivlabs.com/asic-soc-prototyping/| url-status=dead}}</ref>

==See also==