TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter addresses many of the critical device-level trade-offs and decisions that must be made during the device-level design effort. These decisions are important because they affect nearly every following design stage. Almost: every design phase that follows the device selection will be heavily influenced by these architectural decisions. The decisions and actions discussed in this chapter can have a significant impact on a project's final implementation and the efficiency of the design effort. The estimation of consumed FPGA resources and power are important elements of the FPGA selection process. It is critical that the component selected have enough design margin. The following list presents important device-level selection categories.
Manufacturer
Family
Device
Package
After the FPGA device has been selected, there are several decisions that must be made to determine the functional implementation of the FPGA and its interaction with other components in the design. The following list presents important device option decisions that must be made by the design team.
Data flow through the FPGA
Informed I/O pin assignments
Utilization of "unused" I/O pins
There are many factors that can influence a design team's FPGA selection. The selection of an SRAM-based FPGA begins with the selection of a manufacturer. Two of the most significant factors affecting manufacturer selection are design tools and support. Each group and organization will have biases and preferences based on prior experience. During this phase, it is important to re-evaluate different manufacturer offerings...
