Design Techniques for Lower Cost

Course Description

This course will appeal to engineers who have an interest in developing low-cost products, particularly in high-volume markets. The course and exercises cover several different design techniques, which will be interesting and challenging for any digital designer regardless of the final application.

Level

Fundamental

Training Duration

1 day

Who should attend?

Engineers wanting to develop low-cost products, particularly in high-volume markets, and product designers who need to accurately estimate the size of devices required to implement products to predict costs without requiring the actual design to be implemented.

Prerequisites

• An understanding of digital logic design and the concept of an FPGA
• An appreciation of VHDL and CAE design flows is beneficial, but not vital

Supported Devices

Note: No software is needed to run this workshop.

• Spartan FPGA devices

Skills Gained

After completing this comprehensive training, you will have the necessary skills to:

• Describe the features of the Spartan devices
• Accurately estimate design size to aid in predicting product costs
• Apply design techniques that result in low-cost implementations
• Explore creative ways to use the FPGA memory resources to reduce design costs

Course Outline

• What is an FPGA?
• Spartan Family
• CLBs, Slices and BRAM
• Multiplexers
• Flip-Flop Controls
• Synchronous Timing vs. Asynchronous Timing
• Digital Clock Managers
• Dedicated Carry Logic
• Counters
• Wired Carry Gates
• Block Memory
• Distributed RAM
• FIFO
• Dual-Port Memory
• PicoBlaze™ Microcontroller Processor
• State Machines
• Design Challenges

Exercises

• Exercise 1: Exploring the Slice
• Exercise 2: Logic Levels
• Exercise 3: Dedicated Multiplexers
• Exercise 4: Performance by Design
• Exercise 5: Clocks
• Exercise 6: Counters
• Exercise 7: Aspect Ratios
• Exercise 8: Replacing Logic with Block RAM
• Exercise 9: Distributed RAM
• Exercise 10: Essence of FIFO
• Exercise 11: Delay
• Exercise 12: PicoBlaze Microprocessor
• Exercise 13: State Machines
• Design Challenges
  • Rotational Trigger
  • Operation Clock
  • LED Wall Display
  • Electronic Keyboard