A guide to FPGAs for communications

MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: The Linley Group has published A Guide to FPGAs for Communications, First Edition. Authored by Jag Bolaria and Joseph Byrne, the 146-page book comes for a single License: $2,995 (single copy).

Evaluating and comparing FPGAs for communications applications
Despite a downturn in the market in 2008, FPGA revenue continues to grow due to strong demand from communications market customers and OEMs. To ensure long-term growth and stability, FPGA vendors are diversifying their product portfolios. Although only a handful of FPGA vendors are serving the networking and communications segment, the abundance of offerings makes it a challenge to compare and select products.

This report covers a range of commercially available FPGA devices for communications equipment. We provide in-depth coverage of midrange FPGAs and high-end FPGAs for wireless and wireline infrastructure systems as well as an overview of low-end FPGAs.

We provide a roadmap to the complex product lines of market leaders Xilinx (Spartan and Virtex) and Altera (Arria, Stratix, and Cyclone) as well as smaller supplier such as Lattice, Achronix, and Cswitch.

For wireless applications, we cover FPGAs for base stations, including remote radio heads, turbo coding, and modulation. For wireline applications, it covers typical functions performed by FPGAs, including framers, mappers, MACs, and coprocessors.

The report discusses the pros and cons of using FPGAs or alternatives such as ASSPs, ASICs, and processors. For each vendor, we discuss its FPGA products as well as the available IP (intellectual property) for communications applications.

Unlike typical market research, this report provides technology analysis and head-to-head product comparisons. Which FPGAs will win designs and why? Which device is best-suited for which application? How will these vendors be positioned as the market evolves? Only The Linley Group's unique technology analysis can provide this forward-looking view.

We sort out the technology and the vendors
We begin with an extensive overview of this growing market, providing several introductory chapters that define and describe basic concepts and key technologies.

We explore the target markets and applications for FPGAs, followed by an explanation of the common attributes of these products. Following these introductory chapters, the report delivers a complete chapter on the major vendors that offer products in multiple segments.

This handy guide, packed with valuable information, brings you up-to-date on the newest developments in this important market and gives you the analysis you need to help choose a supplier or partner in this field.

"A Guide to FPGAs for Communications" cuts through the vendor hype to analyze each vendor and each product, probe their strengths and weaknesses, and present relevant details in a consistent, easy to compare fashion.

The report provides background on these technologies, with in-depth coverage of the vendors in each segment, including product details and roadmap information where available. Finally, we provide our outlook for the leading vendors in each segment and for the overall market.