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Xilinx XC2064: The World’s First Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)

The fact that Xilinx is one of the leading Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) leaves on one in doubt. Asides from manufacturing quality, high-performance FPGAs, the company also paved the way for FPGAs.

The XC2064 was the first Field Programmable Gate Array (PGA) and it was manufactured by Xilinx. The production and the release wee in 1985. In this article, you are going to learn about the factors that led to the manufacturing of the XC2064 FPGA and the need for it to be reverse engineered.

Meet Ross Freeman, the Inventor

Ross Freeman was the brain behind the manufacturing of XC2064, which later became the first Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). It would later go on to become a sort of standard for manufacturing Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs).

According to Autodesk, Ross Freeman launched a company called Xilinx, now a part of AMD. He launched it alongside the duo of Bernard Vonderschmitt and James V. Barnett II.

The primary reason for launching the company was to set the ground running for the development of better replacements for transistors, which were set to be phased out of the market at the time.

According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, he thought of a “computer chip full of “open gates” that engineers can reprogram as much as needed to make new functionality, adapt to changing standards or specifications, and make last minute design changes.”

That became the basis for the launch of XC2064, the first Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in the world.

Features of the XC2064 FPGA

Full pcb manufacturing

At the time it was launched, the XC2064 can best be described as the first FPGA to undergone a lot of criticisms. This is perhaps, one of the reasons that motivated its reverse engineer later in the future.

The features of the first FPGA (XC2064) included:

1. Simpler Design

In addition to providing room for reprogramming or reconfiguration, the XC2064 also had a simpler design.

Unlike the modern-day FPGAs loaded with lots of logic functions, it barely had 64 logic blocks.

2. “Complicated Bitstream”

A bitstream in an FPGA has to do with the file containing the configuration information or data of the FPGA. In that case, the programmability of the FPGA heavily relies on the bitstream, as it needs to be streamed or synced with the FPGA’s configuration port.

That didn’t appear to be the case with the XC2064. According to Ken Shirriff, who reverse engineered the XC2064 FPGA, it didn’t have a clear bitstream from a glance. Rather, it was made up of a “puzzling mixture of patterns that repeat regularly with sequences scattered through the bitstream.”

He, however, agreed that the XC2064 FPGA’s bitstream can be understood if one paid closer attention to it. In his words, “studying the physical circuitry of the FPGA reveals the structure of the bitstream data and it can be understood”

The Reverse Engineering of the XC2064 FPGA

As mentioned before, Ken Shirriff saw the need to reverse engineer the Xilinx XC2064 FPGA. He cited the complicated programming methods as one of the reasons for making the reverse engineered version of the XC2064 FPGA.

In summary, he used the reverse engineering to address critical issues in the Xilinx XC2064, such as the:

  • Smaller number of cells or logic blocks
  • Usage of multiple highly-optimized circuits, mainly to implement the logic blocks and routing the same.
  • Larger design of the Xilinx XC2064 FPGA, which is considerably bigger than modern-day FPGAs.

To address these issues, Ken reverse engineered the Xilinx XC2064 FPGA and created a flexible distribution of the bitstream across the chip. It involved the mapping of the bitstream to ensure that its bits’ layout matched the physical layout of the chip.

Conclusion

Ross Freeman’s vision for the electronics design market led to the establishment of Xilinx and the manufacturing of the Xilinx XC2064, the first FPGA in the world. Today, the XC2064 FPGA is in the Chip Hall of Fame for laying the framework for modern-day FPGA designs.

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