Lattice launches single wire aggregation IP solution

According to Lattice, the solution is a simple and innovative way for developers to use low power, small form factor Lattice FPGAs to reduce the number of board-to-board and component-to-component connectors in their embedded designs to increase reliability and reduce overall system footprint and cost.

The connectors used to link circuit boards and modules in electronic systems are costly, take up valuable space in devices with tight form factors, and over time can degrade and negatively impact system reliability. Routing signals between multiple connectors on space-constrained circuit boards can create design challenges that increase overall time-to-market.

“Developers are always looking for innovative ways to simplify and accelerate the development of embedded systems, while still maintaining the lowest BOM cost possible. Our new SWA solution meets all three of these needs by reducing the number of connectors in a system,” said Hussein Osman, Market Segment Manager, Lattice. “The solution is a strong fit for both novice and expert FPGA developers. Its pre-configured bitstreams help those new to FPGA-based design quickly configure an SWA application without requiring HDL coding experience, while the solution’s support for expanded parameterization makes it easy for FPGA experts to combine the Lattice SWA bitstreams with their own HDL code.”

Featuring the extremely low power and small size Lattice iCE40 UltraPlus FPGA, the SWA solution provides the hardware and software developers require to implement a single wire interface capable of aggregating multiple common I/O (I²C, I²S, UART and GPIO) data streams between components and circuit boards in a system.

Lattice currently offers the following aggregated I/O configurations in pre-configured bitstreams for fast application prototyping.

• Two I²S, an I²C peripheral, an I²C controller, and eight GPIO signals
• Six I²C controller and two GPIO signals
• One I²C controller and 12 GPIO signals
• Three I²C controller, two I²C peripheral, and 15 GPIO signals
• One I²S, one I²C controller, one I²C peripheral, and eight GPIO signals.