FPGA Modules Make It Easier To Include FPGAs In Your Next Design

Jan. 29, 2009

FPGAs aren’t that difficult to incorporate into embedded designs. But unlike some microcontrollers, they often lack features like built-in clocks and brownout detection. Also, some designs require offchip memory. One alternative is to emplo

William G. Wong

Opal Kelly’s XEM3050 FPGA module contains a Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA (see the figure). It also features a 1-Mbyte serial flash chip, a pair of independent 32-kbyte SDRAM chips, and a 2-Mbyte PROM. An 8-bit USB microcontroller provides programming and debug support. All it needs is a dc power source.

Also in the mix are inexpensive platforms such as DLP Design’s DLP-FPGA (see “Ready To Rock FPGA Development” at www.electronicdesign.com, ED Online 18270). The DLP-FPGA uses a Xilinx Spartan-3E along with an FTDI FT2232D USB interface.

DLP DESIGN • www.dlpdesign.com
OPAL KELLY • www.opalkelly.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.