Lattice shrinks design footprint with single wire aggregation IP solution

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 parameterisation makes it easy for FPGA experts to combine the Lattice SWA bitstreams with their own HDL code.”

Featuring the 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

Lattice customers requiring customised configurations can source them directly from Lattice technical support at no charge.