UNDERSTANDING THE QUICKLOGIC FPGA

Quicklogic corporations made news headlines for all the right reasons on May 17, 2022, in San Jose, California, U.S.A. According to yahoo finance, the company exhibited at the Single Event Effect (SEE) symposium. Quicklogic is known for developing ultra-low power multi-core voice-enabled SoCs and Military and Aerospace Programmable Logic Devices (MAPLD).

If you are an FPGA enthusiast, you will find this article informatively helpful and exciting as it unravels and explains in simple and concise terms Quicklogic FPG product guidelines. This article will explain the following about quick logic FPGA and eFPGA products;

• About Quicklogic FPGA
• Quicklogic Polapro 3
• The Quicklogic Australis eFPGA IP generator.
• QuickLogic QuickPCI FPGA
• QuickLogic Open Reconfigurable Computing (QORC)

ABOUT QUICK LOGIC FPGA

Quicklogic is a fabless semiconductor company based the San Jose, U.S.A, that designs low-powered, multi-core MCU, FPGAs, eFPGA IP, and voice sensor processing. In addition, the company boasts of various range of software and hardware solutions to enable the use of artificial intelligence (A.I) and sensor processing across multiple devices.

QUICKLOGIC POLARPRO 3 FPGA

The Quick Logic Polarpro 3 is an FPGA variant designed to solve the industry’s challenge of embedded system architecture. The Prolarpro 3 supports small FPGAs and chip-to-chip connectivity with minimal system power consumption.

• FEATURES OF THE QUICK LOGIC POLARPRO 3
  • Eliminate system latency.
  • It supports low-speed serial protocols.
  • It supports faster time to market.
  • It allows the use of open-source FPGA tools.
  • It enhanced integrated embedded block RAM with dedicated FIFO controllers.
  • Supports I/O level shifting/expansion (interface to a different bus or I/O voltages)

• APPLICATION OF THE QUICK LOGIC POLARPRO 3
  • It is used for the consumer internet of things (IoT) using reprogrammable SRAM technology.
  • Industrial (IoT).
  • GPIO muxing
  • It works for battery-powered applications.

THE QUICK LOGIC AUSTRALIS eFPGA IP GENERATOR

Given the ever dynamic market amidst chip shortages, the Quicklogic australis eFPGA IP generator comes in handy. The Australis was designed to support domain-specific devices instead of building with multipurpose parts. The following are features of the Quicklogic Australis eFPGA IP generator;

• Its ability to modify SoC functionality while adding new features.
• Allow companies to manage their SoC inventories properly.
• It supports the fast completion of projects within weeks or even days.
• It supports Improved market life of the devices.
• It ultimately improves returns on investment as the SoC becomes durable.
• Allows SoC developers to quickly and easily target their embedded FPGA fabric.
• It Supports eFPGA block targeting using TSMC’s 22nm process node.

QUICKLOGIC QUICKPCI FPGA

The Quicklogic quick PCI is the latest design from Quicklogic. It appeals to various industries like military contractors, industrial imaging equipment, financial institutions, and high-end manufacturing industries. This Quicklogic family has three main processor types, which makes it suitable for various users viz;

• Quad processor
  • It has the highest speed and can communicate with the rest of the internal processors.
  •  It also supports up to 10 million instructions per second (MIPS).
  • Founds applications in radar systems, video signal applications, telephony, wireless communications, signal processing, etc.
• Dual processor
  •  It carries two powerful processing elements.
  •  It supports up to 6 MIPS.
• Single processor
  •  The single-processor uses just one quad processing element.
  •  It supports 0.5 million instructions per second (MIPS).

QUICKLOGIC QUICKPCI DEVICES 

• PCI CONTROLLER FEATURES
  • The register mapping (PMM) supports a fully time-triggered interrupt (T32IT) capability.
  • The PCI controller supports multiple purposes viz;
    • Supports C.P.U attachment
    • It Supports stand-alone use.
    • It allows multiple CPU attachments when the CPU does not have an MMU/DMA controller.
    • It supports up to three IDE interfaces on PCI buses through fast EIDE configuration support.
• VISUALIZATION CONTROLLER (I/O PROCESSOR) FEATURES
  • It supports the conversion of the PCI Express (PCIe) I/O into legacy PCI, ISA, and VL-Bus interface signals.
  • It provides an alternative to the x86 emulation of traditional x86 emulator cards.
  • It provides an interface between x86 systems and PCIe devices that are not compatible with the host system.
• ADDRESS DECODE AND CONFIGURATION SPACE FEATURES
  • It enables multiple programs and devices to use a single Command Descriptor Block (CDB).
  • It reduces the number of needed buffers and on-chip logic.
  • It is a 64-bit/33 MHz PCI 2.3 compliant KT133-MC/MT Controller.
• CONFIGURABLE FIFOs FEATURES
  • Allows users to convert their x86 hardware into a complete embedded system solution that runs Linux.
  • It supports a 32-bit/33 MHz PCI 2.3 Compliant Master/Target Controller supporting PCI bus speeds from 33 MHz to 266 MHz
  • It supports the device tree (DT).
• RAM MODULE FEATURES
  • Support memory boards with a capacity between 1 MB and 8 GB.
  • It supports a temperature range from up to 85 °C.
  • It supports SCSI-II and can operate up to 20 MHz.
  • The CPLD in the PICMG uses the SMI as a source for the internal signals of the PCI system controller.
• PCI INTERNAL SIGNAL FEATURES
  • The PICMG TCM has its internal signals, which include: GNT, EOI, I/O REQUEST (00), I/O ACCEPT (01), and Acknowledge (10).
  • Supports signals that come as maskable sources through external pull-up resistors of 3 kΩ.
• PHASE-LOCKED LOOP (PLL) FEATURES
  • It Supports four PCI slots for various I/O cards used for networking, graphics, security, etc.
  • Carries an MFD that supports one PCI expansion slot connecting a VGA card or other video display devices.

QUICKLOGIC OPEN RECONFIGURABLE COMPUTING (QORC)

The QuickLogic open reconfigurable computing is the industry’s first open-source development suite. The company’s earlier developer Atmicro in collaboration with Google and Quicklogic, designed complete support for the EOS S3 low power, voice, and sensor processing MCU. The EOS S3 open source development tools are comprised of;

• FPGA DEVELOPMENT (SYMBIFLOW): Symbiflow is an Open source tool for optimizing and automating the FPGA design flow, from Verilog to bitstream generation.
• SoC EMULATION (RENODE): Renode is the open-source simulation framework for rapid prototyping, developing, and testing multi-node systems.
• ZEPHYR REAL-TIME OPERATING SYSTEM (RTOS): The Zephyr RTOS is an open-source that operates in real-time on the Arm Cortex M4F.
• QUICKFEATHER DEVELOPMENT KIT: This kit is suitable for low-power Machine Learning (ML) capable IoT devices.

CONCLUSION

The QuickLogic FPGA is about the best in delivering low-power multicore SoCs and Military and Aerospace Programmable Logic Devices (MAPLD). The company’s QuickLogic open reconfigurable computing has also made system design easy for everyone in the FPGA industry.