CURRENT FEATURE ARTICLES

Cheap Chip-keeping
Actel’s $1.20 System Management Solution
I/O-topia
The Outer Ring of FPGA Architecture
FPOAs Meet the Challenges of H.264 Encoding of High Definition Video
by Tom Diamond, MathStar, Inc.
FP?A
The Quest for the Best Building Blocks
NOS FPGA
Vintage Silicon Revisited
COTS Supercomputing
DRC Harnesses FPGAs
FPGAs and Ethernet
Providing Programmability to Pervasive Interconnect Standard, by Navneet Rao, Xilinx, Inc.
Duct Tape, WD-40, FPGAs
The Universal Survival Kit

JOURNAL WEBCASTS

Cheap Chip-keeping
Actel’s $1.20 System Management Solution

System Management has historically been a topic of concern for high-end systems.  For designers of low-cost, single-board applications, “system management” often consisted of a couple of 9V battery clips, an FET, an LED, and some bailing wire.  However, the proliferation of sophisticated technology into low-end systems, combined with the increasingly urgent need for power efficiency, has moved true system management issues right down into the realm of the single-boarders.

Many single board systems today are getting into big-league system management requirements with multiple power supplies in a variety of voltages, power management, thermal monitoring and management, complex power sequencing during events like startup and shutdown, and system-level clocking.  These tasks often require analog monitoring and control capabilities such as identifying and responding to alert conditions.  System management is also tasked with logging alarms and events, closed-loop control, and diagnostics and prognostics.

Unfortunately, most system management solutions have been created with the big-BOM mentality.  $10-$30 worth of system management hardware is inconsequential in a design with two or three high-end FPGAs, a bunch of expensive memory, and assorted other exotic components and connectors.  However, if you’re in the cheap board or high-volume crowd, such expensive system management solutions send you searching for alternatives.  MCUs, system management ASSPs, and home-crafted solutions built from discrete analog parts all get pressed into action on a regular basis, but each has its shortcomings. [more]