The area of field programmable gate array
(FPGA) design is evolving at a rapid pace. The
increase in the complexity of the FPGA's architecture
means that it can now be used in far more
applications than before. The newer FPGAs are
steering away from the plain vanilla type "logic -
only" architecture to one with embedded dedicated
blocks for specialized applications. With so
many choices available, the designer not only has
to familiarize himself with the various architectures
and their strengths, but he also needs a way
to quickly estimate the performance of his design
when targeted to the different technologies.
This paper briefly outlines the latest offerings from the
key FPGA vendors and in its latter half discusses
the importance of using the right synthesis tool in
order to target the same design to these various
technologies.
