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FPGA design services

Information and comparison

Overview

Outsourcing FPGA design has become a popular practice. According to the FPGA Central poll, 75% of respondents utilize third-party FPGA design services at least occasionally, and 33% utilize them for every design.

There are several reasons to use third-party FPGA design services. Of course, these reasons can work together.

  1. Using FPGA design services can reduce expenses and (sometimes) time-to-market. There are two main issues that cause expenses reduction:
    • If a customer is located in a developed country, and an FPGA design service provider is located in a country with emerging market, the customer can benefit from lower wages.
    • If a customer needs to do FPGA design only occasionally, it isn't reasonable to employ a full-scale FPGA design team. Using third-party FPGA design services when needed can be more appropriate solution.
  2. A company can encounter a situation when it doesn't have enough own resources to run a project, and a timeline doesn't make it possible to hire new engineers. In this case it is possible to outsource part of the job to a third-party FPGA design service provider.
  3. A company can act as a system integrator, bringing together different parts of the system. A system integrator can do its business without in-house FPGA design resources at all, ordering third-party FPGA design services when needed. This approach allows to concentrate more on business-related issues.

Types of FPGA design services

Turnkey FPGA design services

Using turnkey FPGA design services is the easiest way to outsource FPGA design tasks. This approach can save a system integrator from all the associated headaches.

When using any type of FPGA design service, a strict requirements specification document is needed to ensure that a customer and an FPGA design service provider understand the problem similarly. This is especially correct for turnkey FPGA design services, since in this case a customer usually don't keep a close eye on the design process.

Specific FPGA design services

Specific FPGA design services are related to the different stages of the FPGA design process:

  1. Feasibility study, requirements analysis
  2. Platform selection
  3. RTL design (Verilog, VHDL)
  4. RTL verification

FPGA design services

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