By Warren Webb, Technical Editor - EDN
As the economic slowdown takes its toll on development budgets, embedded-system designers are turning to FPGA (field-programmable-gate-array) technology to shorten design cycles, combat obsolescence, and simplify product updates. By taking advantage of a huge and growing arsenal of FPGA-development tools, reusable-logic elements, and off-the-shelf modules, designers can craft high-performance embedded systems that you can reconfigure for changes in requirements with a minimum impact on engineering and manufacturing. Traditionally, board designers have used these devices to interconnect system components, but the latest high-density products can also replace the processors, memory, custom logic, and many of the peripherals in a typical embedded project. Although it has the potential to transform embedded architecture, designers should analyze the performance, power, and cost limitations to determine where FPGA technology fits.

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