Frontier

The Forum/FAQ Formula: Full Duplex Conversation

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."  At Lattice, we're keenly aware of the importance of communications with our customers....  finding out their needs, thoughts and opinions.

To better serve the Lattice user community with enhanced communication between users and Lattice engineers, we're making some changes to our Forum area of the web.  This will be a three fold strategy: open forums, FAQ's, and Q&A.  Here's how they'll play out:

• Open Forum:  This is the newest section and it's a forum in the truest and most traditional sense of the word.  The purpose of the Open Forum is free form discussion between Lattice users. Please post here to share your experiences, questions, solutions and opinions.  Lattice engineers will also be active in this community, so please let us know what's on your mind!
• Q & A Forums: This is a set of forums where users can post questions directly to the Lattice applications engineering team. This forum is less about discussion and more about specific questions.
• FAQ's: This section is for fast answers.  A question gets promoted to an FAQ when we see the same question being repeated in the Q & A section, the Open Forum, or by direct contact with our tech support team (techsupport@latticesemi.com).  If you'd like to comment on an FAQ, please let us know your thoughts in the Open Forum.

We hope that this three pronged approach will provide open and dynamic communication between Lattice users and engineers. You can see the new forum organization at http://www.latticesemi.com/support/forums.cfm.  Please feel free to post your opinions on this new organization by posting in the Open Forum.  We're eager to hear what you think!

-dan

"Embedded": What Does It Really Mean?--Part 2

Back in August I wrote a short blog entry in which I pontificated on the term "embedded" as it applies to FPGAs. In that blog I concluded that the term is synonymous with "œbuilt-in," especially in the context of major FPGA features and functions (e.g. embedded DSPs, block memories and SERDES).

Shortly thereafter, a response appeared in Embedded.com that offered a different interpretation of the term. In that article, the folks at Embedded counter that "embedded" means a computer "whose end function is not to be a computer" (i.e. bringing software off the desk and into the device). Historically speaking, and to software and systems engineers, that is a crisp and accurate definition.

However, I think that both of our views are accurate, but in different arenas. Reading the responses to the Embedded.com article, it becomes clear that the article is speaking to a broader systems audience (who may or may not be designing with FPGAs). My blog, however, was to directed to a more specialized group: the FPGA designers themselves. The editor and I therefore use the term "œembedded" differently for two distinct audiences. To me, this is apples and oranges, not "to-MAY-toes" and "to-MAH-toes."

There are two crossover points that illustrate this. The first point is the manner in which each audience views the FPGA. The typical Embedded.com reader will view an FPGA as an element in an "embedded" system. FPGA developers, on the other hand, use "embedded" features (IP) to bring higher levels of integration to their FPGA design. To the first audience, the FPGA is part of the system; to the latter audience, the FPGA is the system.

The second crossover point is the relationship between the processor and the term "embedded" itself.  for Embedded.com's audience it could not be simpler: Processors are there quite by definition.  For an FPGA designer, a processor is something that is itself embedded (witness  Lattice's open source Mico32), along with all the other high level, embedded features. Indeed, a microprocessor might not even be present in the FPGA.

I'll close by revisiting the point from my previous blog: in FPGA geek-speak, "embedded" is a simple way to denote potentially high levels of complexity by means of built-in features. If the FPGA engineer wants to build a sophisticated, system-on-chip FPGA, embedded IP is the obvious way to do it.

While IP enables embedded SoC FPGA's, it does not complete the picture.  In fact, it's just the tip of the iceberg for a very non-trivial task.  For this reason, Lattice has gone well beyond the IP catalog itself to support customers with tools such as hard cores, soft cores, reference designs, evaluation boards and full-time tech support. Please see my earlier blog for more thoughts on this topic.

I encourage anyone reading this blog (especially the folks at Embedded.com) to respond with opinions and feedback via the "Comments" link at the bottom of this page.

"Embedded": What Does It Really Mean, Anyway?

With the Embedded Systems Conference coming up in Boston, I recently started thinking about the term “embedded” and what it means today.  It seems that it’s become bandied about with such reckless abandon that it means everything and nothing.

So what does it mean on the FPGA landscape?  I think there are two ways to look at it...  On one level, “embedded” simply means “built-in”.  Today’s FPGAs have embedded RAM, processors and DSP’s (LatticeECP2M).  There’s even embedded Flash (LatticeXP2) and SERDES (LatticeSC & LatticeECP2M) in FPGAs.

At a more substantial level though, it means “complexity”.  Complexity is good for the marketing folks, but risky for us engineer types: The more stuff you have embedded, the more stuff you have to configure, integrate and test.  Configuration and hook up are usually the straightforward part of embedded IP.  Testing: there’s the rub... Fortunately, there are a couple of aces up our “embedded” sleeves.

The first ace is evaluation boards. Eval boards are sold by FPGA suppliers to enable customers to experiment with embedded features in a simple development environment.  It’s an excellent medium for getting up-close and personal with an embedded feature. Since the same company that sells the embedded IP also designs the evaluation boards, designers have the same source for support and documentation.

The second ace up the sleeve is demos that show-off specific embedded features.  Usually designed to a specific evaluation board, these little gems are a powerful way to kick start your development.  Typically, you’ll download design files along with documentation to help you get the demo working on your eval board.  The purpose of any demo is (1) proof that the embedded feature works on a given device and (2) help for the developer to get started with that particular embedded technology.

If you’re attacking an FPGA design with new embedded features, I’d encourage you to look at our IP catalog to see what tickles your embedded fancy. Then go to the evaluation board page to take a gander at our evaluation board offerings.

Lattice Semiconductor will be at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston on September 19th and 20th.  We’ll have several demos showing off several of our latest embedded features.   Stop by for a look and a chat.