FPGA market trends with next generation technology

Written by V Srinivas Durga Prasad, Soft Nautex

FPGA market trends with next generation technology

Due to their excellent performance and versatility, FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) attract a wide variety of companies. Also, it has the advantage of adopting new standards and modifying devices according to specific application requirements even after they are deployed for use. On the other hand, Gate Matrices are related to the 2D matrix of logic gates. FPGAs are used in many applications where complex logic circuits are required and changes are expected. Medical devices, ASIC models, multimedia, automotive, consumer electronics, and many other areas are covered by FPGA applications. In recent years, the market share and technology innovation in the FPGA sector is growing very rapidly. FPGAs offer advantages for deep learning and AI-based solutions, including improved performance with low latency, high throughput, and energy efficiency. According to Mordor Intelligence, the global FPGA market was valued at $6,958.1 million in 2021 and is expected to reach $1,751.8 million by 2027, at a compound annual growth rate of 8.32 percent from 2022 to 2027.

FPGA Design Market Engines

global market drivers

The FPGA market is hotly contested due to economies of scale, the nature of product offerings, and cost-volume metrics favoring firms with lower fixed costs. Depending on the size, 28nm FPGA chips are expected to grow rapidly as they provide high-speed processing and improved efficiency. These features have helped it be adopted in a variety of industries, including automotive, high-performance computing, and communications. The consumer electronics sector appears promising for FPGAs as increased purchasing power in developing countries is contributing to increased market demand for new devices. FPGAs are being developed by market players for use in Internet of Things, Natural Language Processing (NLP) devices, information and entertainment based devices, multimedia systems, and many industrial intelligent solutions. Depending on the application requirements, low, mid-range or high-end FPGA configurations are selected.

FPGA architecture overview

The general FPGA architecture design consists of three types of modules. They are I/O blocks, switching matrix, and configurable logical blocks (CLB). An FPGA is a semiconductor device made up of logic blocks coupled via programmable connections.

FPGA engineering

Logical blocks consist of lookup tables (LUTs) with a specified number of inputs and are built using primary memory such as SRAM or Flash to hold logical functions. To support sequential circuits, each terminal terminal (LUT) is connected to a transmit multiplexer and a flip-flop register. Similarly, many build local lookup tables can be used to handle complex functions. According to the configurations, FPGAs are categorized into three types: Low, Medium, and High Quality FPGAs. The Artix-7/Kintex-7 series of Xilinx, ECP3 and ECP5 series of Lattice Semiconductors are some of the popular low power, low design density FPGA designs. While Xilinx’s Virtex family, Microsemi’s ProASIC3 family, and Intel’s Stratix family are engineered for high performance with high design density.

FPGA Firmware Development

Since the FPGA is a programmable logic array, the logic must be configured to match the needs of the system. Firmware, which is a set of data, provides the configuration. Due to the complexity of FPGAs, the application-specific purpose for FPGAs is built using software. The user begins the FPGA design process by providing a Hardware Description Language (HDL) definition or schematic design. VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) and Verilog are two commonly used types of HDLs. Then, the next step in the FPGA design process is to develop a network list for the FPGA family used. This was developed using electronic design automation software and defines the necessary connection within the FPGA. The design then adheres to the FPGA, allowing it to be used in the electronic circuit board (ECB) for which it was built.

FPGA applications

FPGAs in automobiles are widely used in LiDAR to create images from a laser beam. They are employed in self-driving cars to instantly evaluate shots for obstacles or the edge of the road to detect obstacles. Also, FPGAs are widely used in in-vehicle infotainment systems for reliable, high-speed in-vehicle communications. They enhance efficiency and conserve energy.

• telecommunication systems

FPGAs are widely used in telecommunication systems to enhance connectivity and coverage and improve overall quality of service while reducing delay and latency, particularly when data modulation is involved. Nowadays, FPGAs are widely used in server and cloud applications by businesses.

These systems are becoming increasingly common in today’s world. Examples include surveillance cameras, artificial intelligence bots, screen readers/characters, and other devices. Many of these devices require a system that can detect their location, recognize objects in their environment and people’s faces, and act and communicate with them appropriately. This job requires handling large amounts of visual data, creating multiple datasets and processing them in real time, and this is where FPGA speeds up and makes the process much faster.

The FPGA market will continue to evolve with the growing demand for silicon that is adaptable in real time with next-generation technologies, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, etc. An ideal semiconductor for training massive amounts of data on the fly. It is promising to speed up AI workloads and inference. Flexibility, detailed parallelism, and the ability to reprogramme for many applications are the main benefits of using an FPGA to accelerate machine learning and deep learning processes.

Author: V Srinivas Durga Prasad

Srinivas is a Marketing Specialist at Softnautics and works on commercial technical writing, marketing research, and trend analysis. He is a marketing enthusiast with over 6 years of experience from diverse industries. He loves to travel and is fond of adventures.

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