A54SX08

Actel's SX family of FPGAs features a sea-of-modules architecture that delivers device performance and integration levels not currently achieved by any other FPGA architecture. SX devices greatly simplify design time, enable dramatic reductions in design costs and power consumption, and further decrease time to market for performance-intensive applications.

Actel's SX architecture features two types of logic modules, the combinatorial cell (C-cell) and the register cell (R-cell), each optimized for fast and efficient mapping of synthesized logic functions. The routing and interconnect resources are in the metal layers above the logic modules, providing optimal use of silicon. This enables the entire floor of the device to be spanned with an uninterrupted grid of fine-grained, synthesis-friendly logic modules (or "sea-of-modules"), which reduces the distance signals have to travel between logic modules. To minimize signal propagation delay, SX devices employ both local and general routing resources. The high-speed local routing resources (DirectConnect and FastConnect) enable very fast local signal propagation that is optimal for fast counters, state machines, and datapath logic. The general system of segmented routing tracks allows any logic module in the array to be connected to any other logic or I/O module. Within this system, propagation delay is minimized by limiting the number of antifuse interconnect elements to five (90 percent of connections typically use only three antifuses). The unique local and general routing structure featured in SX devices gives fast and predictable performance, allows 100 percent pin-locking with full logic utilization, enables concurrent PCB development, reduces design time, and allows designers to achieve performance goals with minimum effort.

Further complementing SX's flexible routing structure is a hard-wired, constantly loaded clock network that has been tuned to provide fast clock propagation with minimal clock skew. Additionally, the high performance of the internal logic has eliminated the need to embed latches or flip-flops in the I/O cells to achieve fast clock-to-out or fast input set-up times. SX devices have easy-to-use I/O cells that do not require HDL instantiation, facilitating design re-use and reducing design and verification time.