Specifications

15
Power consumption in an FPGA is a factor of the quantity of gates and logical
units that are utilized in the HDL design, so it would be impossible to make an
early evaluation of the device power consumption using an FPGA, however the
Cyclone2 has the advantage of being designed on a modern, 90nm process
technology, meaning its total power consumption with respect to other FPGA
solutions in the market, would be significantly low. Based on the size of the
breakout board for the FPGA by itself, as seen in Figure 2.2.2.1-1, a custom
designed PCB layout might be necessary in order to reduce space inside the
device enclosure. One consideration to make in the selection of this FPGA would
be the pre-generated core-logic devices provided by Altera for integration into the
FPGA. Notably, much development time could be saved with a predesigned
UART module that could be integrated and programmed into our design.
However, research has indicated that pre-written program logic is a luxury of
those developers who can spend more on the hardware development kit, and as
a project based on this chip will not benefit from such savings in time, due to a
priority for savings in cost.
Figure 2.2.2.1-1 Altera Cyclone2 Breakout w/ actual size reference, reprinted
with permission from Sparkfun.com
2.2.2.1 Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA
Much like the other FPGA evaluated in this document, the Xilinx Spartan 3E is a
low power, user programmable FPGA. This FPGA requires a customized