Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) from the Spartan-3A DSP family address the design issues in the majority of high-volume, price-concious, high-performance DSP applications. The two-member family offers system gate densities between 1.8 and 3.4 million.
The Spartan-3A DSP family expands on the success of the Spartan-3A FPGA family by incorporating XtremeDSP DSP48A slices and increasing RAM per logic. New features increase system performance while lowering configuration costs. These Spartan-3A DSP FPGA improvements give more capability and bandwidth per dollar than ever before, setting a new benchmark for the programmable logic and DSP processing market. They work in conjunction with the industry-proven 90 nm process technology. The Spartan-3A FPGA family is expanded and improved by the Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs.
An output register has also been added to the block RAMs to speed up performance. The Spartan-3A DSP devices' block RAM and DSP48A slices both operate at 250 MHz in the least expensive, standard-speed -4 grade.
Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs are perfectly suited to a wide range of consumer electronics applications, including broadband access, home networking, display/projection, and digital television, because of their remarkable DSP price/performance ratio.
ASICs that have been mask coded are a better option than the Spartan-3A DSP series. FPGAs bypass the traditional ASICs' high initial cost, protracted development cycles, and inherent rigidity. Additionally, unlike with ASICs, FPGA programmability enables design modifications in the field without the need for new hardware.
