FPGAs - Right For Your Application?

Simply put, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit that can be programmed after manufacturing.

In 1985 Xilinx co-founders Ross Freeman and Bernard Vonderschmitt invented the first commercially viable FPGA. Two decades later, Freeman was entered into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention.

FPGAs allow designers to adapt or completely change their designs very late in the production cycle– even after the end system has been manufactured and deployed in the field. You can configure an FPGA to be as simple or as complex as you require, but an FPGA does nothing by itself. FPGAs store their configuration in RAM, meaning that once they the power is switched off they lose their configuration. They must be configured every time power is applied.


To get started. the designer needs to create a bit file for the FPGA. Once it's loaded the FPGA will behave like the digital circuit you designed. FPGAs have large resources of logic gates and RAM blocks to implement complex digital programs. Similar to a PLD, but whereas PLDs are generally limited to hundreds of gates, FPGAs support thousands of gates. Thanks to their programmable nature, FPGAs are an ideal fit for many different markets.

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Extreme Engineering (X-ES) has designed and manufactured a line of high-performance FPGA processing modules in industry-standard XMC and 3U VPX form factors. These rugged, configurable modules include features such as FMC sites and daughter cards to simplify I/O compatibility for many different applications.

X-ES also has extensive experience integrating FPGAs with Intel® and Freescale-based SBC and I/O platforms into a wide range of customer-specific and SecureCOTS designs. With the combination of superior signal processing capabilities as well as high speed A/D and D/A conversion, these modules are ideal solutions for high-end RF signal acquisition, SDR, and DSP requirements.

Check out the FPGA Development Kit (FDK) whitepaper from X-ES for an in-depth review of how to integrate their FPGA capabilities into your application.

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