FPGA platform for APAC’s low-cost, high-volume apps

Christophe Chene, senior director, marketing and applications, General Product Division, Xilinx Inc., explains the importance of Spartan-3A platform’s DNA anti-cloning security feature and divulges the future direction of the company’s new applications development lab in Shenzhen, China.





ECN-Asia: What are the main differences between the Spartan-3A and other Spartan platforms?

Chene: The Spartn-3 Generation is the industry’s first high-volume low cost FPGA series with multiple domain-optimized platforms. The Spartan-3A platform is I/O-optimized, targeted at applications where I/O count and capabilities matter more than logic density. It is optimized for high density and pin count applications, whereas, the Spartan-3E platform is uniquely tailored for logic-optimized designs. The Spartan-3A platform perfectly complements the other two members in the generation and further strengthens Xilinx’s highly successful portfolio of the low-cost, high-volume Spartan-3 Generation. Moreover, the domain platforms expand the optimized design coverage area and opens new opportunities at lowest cost. The table below compares the high-level features of the platforms:



Click here for the table



Furthermore, Spartan-3A offers the industry’s first robust anti-cloning security for low-cost FPGAs.ECN-Asia: Please explain how the DNA anti-cloning security feature works. How will designer engineers and companies benefit from it?

Chene: The Spartan-3A family is the first low-cost FPGA to offer the next generation of protection for design, IP and embedded data. It offers protection from reverse engineering, cloning and overbuilding, while still giving the customer the ability to outsource their manufacturing and assembly.



Today, many corporations are moving to an outsourced manufacturing or assembly business model leaving them susceptible to cloning and overbuilding. According to the International Anti-counterfeiting Bureau, US companies lost more than $200 billion in revenue in 2005 due to theft. With minimal to no engineering or research investment from cloners and overbuilders, the financial loss to corporations can be substantive. The market share loss is just the beginning. If a company does not know if a product in the field is real or an exact duplicate, there is no way to guarantee the same level of quality. This results in additional impact to the bottom line due to increased RMAs. Additionally, product reliability issues could open an enormous liability and responsibility to the company that fall victim to cloning or overbuilding. All such issues ultimately can affect the company name, reputation and corporate image.



The basic concept of the Spartan-3A family design level security can be compared to when you access an ATM – you insert your bank card (the Device DNA) and authenticate your identity by entering a PIN (authorization algorithm). If someone steals your ATM card, they cannot use it without also having your PIN number. The system then compares your information entered with the previously stored information on the bank’s computer (the stored authorization code). If they match then the ATM will work. Otherwise, nothing works. This is the same process that can be used with the Spartan-3A security.



At the center of the Spartan-3A security is the Device DNA, which is a unique non-volatile permanently programmed factory set serial number. The Device DNA along with a user-defined authentication algorithm can then be part of the design for a specific Spartan-3A device. Additional benefit of the user-defined authentication algorithm is that it can be changed from generation to generation of each design continuously to provide security to the customer as well as the customer’s customer.



ECN-Asia: Aside from your ISE software tool, which third-party EDA vendors support this new platform? When will these tools be available?

Chene: Aside from the ISE design tool suite, customers can also use the Spartan-3 Generation library of application-specific IP, and the new Spartan-3A Starter Kit. Mentor Graphics and Synplicity both already have full support for the Spartan-3A family in their tools today.



ECN-Asia: The new Spartan Applications Development lab is located in Shenzhen. What are Xilinx’s main reasons for building a lab in Asia?

Chene: The Asia Pacific market is strategically important for Xilinx as it is a major development and manufacturing hub for the consumer, automotive and industrial markets worldwide, which are the target markets for the Spartan-3A. By being closer to our Asia Pacific customer base, Xilinx will be able to provide extensive technical support to local customers in the design and optimization of their Spartan-based system-level solutions and develop product specifications suitable for Asia Pacific and Chinese market requirements.



ECN-Asia: What is the biggest regional market for Spartan 3 Generation? What is driving this growth?

Chene: Today we see good growth in all regions of the world driven by the full range of edge products in many areas from wireless, home, automotive, factor, office and on the job site. Going forward, we see the Asia Pacific market being the biggest area of growth because the majority of the world’s consumer, automotive and industrial products are developed and/or manufactured in the region.