We offer a wide variety of prototyping solutions for space FPGAs such as RT PolarFire®, RTG4™, RTAX-S/SL/DSP, RTSX-SU and RT ProASIC® 3 FPGAs. These solutions provide designers of spaceflight systems with a prototyping vehicle for every step of the design process. Our solutions range from cost-effective, commercial-equivalent devices in commercial packages to RT-PROTO devices that use the same silicon and packaging as the flight units without some flight-model tests. Our prototyping solutions help speed up the design and verification process while making it easy to use our space FPGAs in even the most complex designs that require multiple phases of verification. Browse the solutions that we offer for each device family and the corresponding documents.
Note:
- Prototyping adapter is available
RTAX-S/SL/DSP
For the early development phase and functional verification, we offer commercial Axcelerator products as a cost-effective way to prototype for RTAX-S/SL designs. Most RTAX-S/SL products have a footprint-compatible, equivalent device in the ceramic package that you can use for prototyping. For package types that do not have footprint-compatible Axcelerator-equivalent devices, we offer prototyping adapters to pin-map the Axcelerator devices to RTAX-S/SL package footprints.
In these early phases, you can also prototype with our Flash-based reprogrammable ProASIC 3 FPGA devices. Aldec® provides the software that remaps antifuse primitives to Flash, which reduces design time and cost. In addition, the hardware adaptor is footprint compatible with RTAX-S/SL FPGAs and therefore, you do not need to redesign a new board for prototyping. For more information, refer to our AC170 application note.
For final design verification, we offer the RTAX-S/SL/DSP PROTO units that have the same footprint and timing characteristics as the flight units. These solutions offer tremendous savings in design time by eliminating design cycles, which translates into overall lower development costs.
RTSX-SU
We offer a lower-cost prototype solution for RTSX-SU devices that utilize commercial SX-A devices. The SX-A prototyping solution can offer either footprint-compatible packages or prototyping sockets to adapt commercial SX-A packages to the RTSX-SU package footprints. For final hardware verification, we also offer RT-PROTO devices.
RT ProASIC 3 FPGAs
RT ProASIC 3 FPGA devices in the Land Grid Array (LGA) and Ceramic Column Grid Array (CCGA) packages are pin compatible and timing compatible with the commercial-equivalent ProASIC 3EL devices in Fine-Pitch Ball Grid Array (FG) packages. For example, to prototype a spaceflight design intended for RT3PE600L-CG484B (RT3PE600L in the Column Grid 484 package), you should use A3PE600L-FG484M (A3PE600L in the Fine Ball Grid 484 package). The use of the M version (military temperature range) ensures that timing can be verified in hardware across the full temperature range from −55°C to 125°C. Since ProASIC 3 FPGAs are reprogrammable, you only need to purchase a very small number of prototyping devices.
RT-PROTO is another prototyping solution that offers the same package and timing characteristics as the flight units. RT-PROTO is the only prototyping solution available for RT ProASIC 3 FPGA devices in the Ceramic Quad Flat Pack (CQFP) package. The biggest advantage of the RT ProASIC 3 FPGAs is their re-programmability, allowing for easy testing and prototyping since the prototype units can potentially serve as the final flight products.
