ApplicationNoteAC140.PDFVIP

Application Note AC140 Design for Low Power in Actel Antifuse FPGAs As system power budgets grow tighter, the need for lower power components becomes more critical. For Antifuse-Based Interconnect SRAM-Based Interconnect communications infrastructure applications, board cooling, Metal 3 Metal 3 Antifuse cabinet space minimization, and system reliability all play a role in the system-level design. For e-appliances, battery Metal 2 Metal 2 life, thermal dissipation, and small form factors are the major design challenges. Intelligent device selection and Metal 1 Metal 1 design techniques can improve the chances of meeting a Logic Logic Logic SRAM SRAM Logic power budget. Many programmable logic devices (PLDs) claim to be high performance, but this performance often Figure 1 ? Antifuse and SRAM Interconnects comes with a large power penalty. Actels antifuse FPGAs offer an ideal solution for low-power yet high-performance Segmented Routing Resources applications. Routing-resource capacitance is a function of length, width, This application note describes how Actels antifuse FPGAs and the load of the routing track. Segmented routing can be used in power-sensitive applications. The first resources are shorter than full-length, so they have less section describes the antifuse technology and power- capacitance. Segmentation also allows the unused routing friendly architectural features of Actels FPGAs. The second wires to be disconnected for capacitance reduction. section provides some design techniques for minimizing However, if a signal needs to run longer distances, multiples power in the system.