Cyclone III FPGA: Industrial Applications

Challenges
Solution
Industrial Ethernet
Motion Control
Resources

Challenges

Are you designing products to update manufacturing facilities or automate a distribution floor? Do you need to adapt to changing business requirements but keep manufacturing costs low while maintaining supplies of mature product lines? Do you want to protect your R&D with state-of-the-art anti-tampering solutions?

If so, the Cyclone^® III FPGA family can help you solve these challenges. Their programmable architecture and broad range of development tools and intellectual property (IP), including Altera's flexible Nios^® II 32-bit embedded processor, make the Cyclone III FPGA family an effective solution for a variety of industrial applications such as industrial Ethernet, graphics control, embedded control, and motor control.

Solution

Cyclone III FPGAs offer an unprecedented combination of low power, functionality, and security features while providing the flexibility to keep up with changing market dynamics. Because Cyclone III FPGAs are programmable, they allow for one platform supporting a variety of different protocols such as the different flavors of industrial Ethernet. Additionally, the longevity of the Cyclone III FPGA family means you don't have to worry about product obsolescence. Table 1 shows some of the industrial application advantages offered by the Cyclone III FPGA family.

Feature	Advantage
*Table 1. Key Industrial Application Advantages of the Cyclone III FPGA Family*
End of Life Protection	Altera keeps its devices in production longer, reducing your obsolescence risk-management volume.
Industrial Temperature Support	Support for harsh operating environments from -40°C to 100°C.
Nios II Embedded Soft Processor	The world’s most versatile embedded soft processor, ideal for implementing a low-cost microcontroller.
Abundant Memory at Every Density	Up to 8.2 Mbits of embedded memory and an increased memory-to-logic ratio for all Cyclone III FPGA family members.
Security	Cyclone III LS FPGAs include state-of-the-art security features such as FIPS-197 (256-bit AES) encryption of the FPGA bitstream and tamper detection circuitry to prevent counterfeiting, cloning, or reverse engineering of FPGA-based equipment.
Redundancy	Many industrial applications use redundancy to implement fail-safe functionality. Altera's new design separation feature enables you to quickly and easily design redundant functionality within a single Cyclone III LS FPGA.
Flexible Column Driver Interface Support	Integrated differential buffers, including LVDS, mini-LVDS, and reduced swing differential signaling (RSDS) to interface to a variety of displays.
Video and Image Processing (VIP) Suite	A suite of nine pre-optimized video and image IP cores (including deinterlacer, scaler, and filters) reduce time and effort to increase productivity.
Low Power	The EP3C40 device includes 40K logic elements (LEs), just over 1 Mbit of memory, and 196 multipliers while consuming less than 150 mW typical static power at a junction temperature of 85°C.

Industrial Ethernet

Cyclone III FPGAs not only support a wide variety of industrial Ethernet standards, but also adapt to emerging protocols. This allows you to develop state-of-the-art PLCs, industrial PCs, I/O modules, inverters, servo/stepper drives and motion control. With a single low-cost Cyclone III FPGA and Ethernet PHY, you can cost-effectively implement any industrial standard in your design. By programming the FPGA with several media access control (MAC) hardware blocks and the Nios II embedded microprocessor, you can support multiple standards on the same hardware platform (see Figure 1).

Get more details on Altera's industrial Ethernet solutions

Figure 1. Industrial Ethernet Enabled Motor Control Block Diagram

Figure 1. Industrial Ethernet Block Diagram

Motion Control

95 percent of the world's industrial motors are uncontrolled and cheap, but not very power efficient. By upgrading to variable speed motor control, power efficiency can be increased by up to 85 percent, significantly reducing the electrical demand requirements of industrial equipment. Cyclone III FPGAs are perfect for integrating the latest industrial Ethernet standard or next-generation protocol with precise, variable-speed motor control.

Get more details on Altera's motor control solutions

Resources

Table 2 shows design resources to get you started.

Category	Resource	Description
Table 2. Design Resources
Development Kit Resources
	Mercury Code Industrial Ethernet Kit	Development kit supporting dual industrial Ethernet PHYs and four RS-485 transceivers for PROFIBUS and Interbus-S functionality from partner EBV.
	IXXACT Industrial Ethernet Adapter Modules	Industrial Ethernet Adapter Modules for Powerlink, PROFINET IO, and EtherNet/IP from partner IXXACT Automation GmbH.
	IXXACT Industrial Ethernet Kit	IXXACT Powerlink interface board for PCI bus systems, featuring a FPGA-based Ethernet controller with Powerlink acceleration and dual port hub with corresponding RJ-45 connectors.
	EtherCAT Industrial Ethernet Kit	EtherCAT evaluation platform (EL9830 Base Board with FB1122 Controller Card) from partner Beckhoff.
	Fieldbus Industrial Ethernet Kit	Fieldbus kit for connecting to field devices and to the PROFINET IO, EtherNet/IP, and Modbus/TCP Real-Time Ethernet protocols from partner Softing AG.
	MotionFire Motor control Platform	Development platform combining industrial Ethernet and drive control for up to 12 motors, co-developed with partners Arrow Electronics and National Semiconductor. Video overview of this kit is available.
	FalconEye Motor control Ref Design	This reference design comes with hardware and source code, allowing experienced motor control or FPGA developers to leap ahead with their FPGA-based motor control.
	All other Cyclone III FPGA Development Kits	Altera and partners offer an extensive portfolio of development kits starting at just $199 to jump-start Cyclone III FPGA designs. Each kit comes with everything you need to evaluate and design with a Cyclone III FPGA. You can order many of these kits via Altera's online eStore or any Altera^® distribution partner.
Software and IP Resources
	Nios II Embedded Processor	The world's most versatile processor supported by easy-to-use development tools and a portfolio of FPGA development kits.
	Memory Controllers	Memory controller IP from Altera and partners for DDR, DDR2, and other popular external memory device interfaces.
	Industrial Ethernet Solutions	Altera partners offering a wide range of industrial ethernet solutions or IP; Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT, Powerlink, PROFINET, Modbus/TCP, SERCOS III, and IEEE 1588 from partners IXXACT Automation GmbH, Softing AG, Beckhoff, Automata GmbH & Co Kg, and MoreThanIP.
	IEC61131 support	Industrial control language ported to the Nios II processor available from KW Software and 3S Software.
	AMPP Partners	Partners offering CAN, graphics processing, and other IP and development solutions for industrial and other application areas.
	Video-on-Demand Resources
	The Next Industrial Revolution: Low-Cost Cyclone III FPGAs	15-minute executive overview on the features and benefits of Cyclone III FPGAs for typical industrial applications (including industrial Ethernet, graphics control, and embedded control) in webcast video format.
	Implementing Flexible Industrial Ethernet Solutions	Describes how to support any 802.3-based industrial Ethernet protocol (past or future) from a single board design. By taking advantage of low-cost FPGAs, a wide range of IP, and powerful development tools, you can reduce the cost, increase the flexibility, and minimize the time-to-market of your industrial Ethernet products.
	PowerWise Design TV featuring the MotionFire platform	Host Rick Zarr from National Semiconductor introduces the MotionFire development platform available to system designers for creating FPGA-based motor control designs. Guests include engineers from Arrow Electronics and Altera Corporation.
White Papers
	A Flexible Solution for Industrial Ethernet (PDF)	Provides an overview of how to use FPGAs to create flexible solutions for applications requiring industrial Ethernet connectivity.

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