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The future of "FPGA only" chips compared to SoC and its impact on FPGA engineers

manihatn

Hi All,

We all have noticed the evolution of FPGA from "FPGA-only" chips (from Spartan) to the current generation of Zynq based SoC's and MPSoC's.

The premise for the "7 ways to to Leave your Spartan-6" prompting designs to be migrated from Spartan-6 to Spartan-7 from my understanding was the chip shortage due to pandemic. 

As part of future-proofing product lines to handle feature creeps and having supply-chain reliability, I have always tempted to migrate designs from Spartan to Zynq's.  

I have always wondered, besides the Power consumption (and to certain extent price point) argument, what are people's reason to stick with FPGA-only chips instead of SoC's.

Are there inherent advantages of using FPGA-Only chips instead of SoC's

As  FPGA engineers, there is a growing need to understand the basics of embedded Linux (and some low level software) as the field is gradually moving towards more software defined workfiows targeting  embedded SoCs.

Will be great to hear your thoughts, opinions and personal journey on how you have evolved your skills over the past few years

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  • Where to start ?

    A small (by volume) sector of the FPGA market may well move to using Zynq like FPGAs.

    But never all of it.

    Most applications don't need or want Linux or any other big operating system in their application.

    Estimates vary but even a small Linux involves millions of lines of code. This code is never free. It requires mangement and maintenance, it will contain many bugs ( because of its size).

    The Zynq ARM proccessors are large "application" type parts, for a great many applications smaller ARM (or other) cores are much more suitable.

    A bunch of new players are moving into the field with sub $10 FPGAs developed with simple tools (sometimes even open source), my prediction is that these parts will easily outstrip the big SOC style FPGAs both in volume of shipments and number of design-ins.

    There are a few SOC type FPGA s around with small micros inside - Gowin have one with and ARM Cortex 3 and a 4k LUT FPGA, and it's cheap.. I think Microchip have some Cortex 3/4 based SOCs too but the pricing hasn't been convincing.

    On to the inhernent advantages of not putting your processor inside the FPGA:

    1)  you get to choose the processor you want

    2) the cost will be lower

    3) the power can be much less (in sleep mode the processor will use little power and the FPGA will be off)

    4) you don't need your FPGA people to do Linux or your software people to do hardware.

    5) you have more options of suppliers of both FPGA and processor

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Hi , Very interesting and valid points. So as far as security of the underlying system is involved, having Linux provides a potential backdoor if it is not properly secured. With respect to ARM processors on Zynq, I am always used to seeing the A9 and A53 processors for the Ultrascale MPSoCs. Were you mentioning only "Gowin" as part of the new players or would be interested to know the other players in the sub $10 FPGA market. With respect to the inherent advantages of not not putting a processor inside FPGA: I accept with most of your points. With respect to choosing the processor I want. Until the RISC-V revolution in the past years, as a naive FPGA developer, my only option was Microblaze. I am not sure if there was much options beyond Microblaze. For 4), I will repily to   post.

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  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Hi , Very interesting and valid points. So as far as security of the underlying system is involved, having Linux provides a potential backdoor if it is not properly secured. With respect to ARM processors on Zynq, I am always used to seeing the A9 and A53 processors for the Ultrascale MPSoCs. Were you mentioning only "Gowin" as part of the new players or would be interested to know the other players in the sub $10 FPGA market. With respect to the inherent advantages of not not putting a processor inside FPGA: I accept with most of your points. With respect to choosing the processor I want. Until the RISC-V revolution in the past years, as a naive FPGA developer, my only option was Microblaze. I am not sure if there was much options beyond Microblaze. For 4), I will repily to   post.

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  • in reply to manihatn

    I was not suggesting that the processor should be inside the FPGA at all, FPGA fabric is approx 10x less efficient than a dedicated chip. Mostly the best place for the microcontroller is in its own chip with its own, usually very superior, peripherals.

    As far as I know Gowin are the only company offering a small FPGA and 'hard' ARM core in a low cost SOC.

    There are two other "new" players in the very low cost FPGA area, Efinix and Renesas. (Although Renesas haven't shipped anything yet.)

    Lattice have been there for a long time but are currently not shipping to distribution in sensible timescales (same supply issues for Xilinx and Altera).

    There have always been alternatives to Microblaze (which is Xilinix's micro in the FPGA fabric offering). Altera/Intel have NIOS and Lattice have their Mico32. There are a good many clones of common 8 bit processors available as HDL type IP as well, some are free/open source.

    MK