Remote System Upgrades with Stratix III FPGAs
Stratix® III FPGAs are designed to allow the flexibility of real-time remote system upgrades (see Figure 1). System upgrades can be remotely transmitted, allowing you to maintain product differentiation and keep your products ahead of your competition. The built-in recovery circuitry and design security of the Stratix III FPGAs assure designers of reliable and secure remote upgrades.
Figure 1. Perform Future System Upgrades Remotely
Extended Marketplace Advantage
As a result of increasing competition, changing standards, and shrinking market windows, designers must strive to create products that are the best-in-market today and to keep them that way for as long as possible. Using FPGAs significantly enhances design flexibility and reduces time-to-market. A system designed with the added benefit of remote upgrade capability can extend its life-cycle and ultimately increase revenue generation. Stratix III FPGAs provide these advantages, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Remote System Upgrade Time and Revenue Benefits
A system that is developed with a Stratix III FPGA and utilizes the remote system upgrade capability can:
- Reduce time-to-market by deploying a subset of the system early, followed by remote upgrade
- Address changing protocols, standards, and new applications quickly
- Provide rapid deployment of bug fixes and product enhancements
- Lower overall cost by eliminating a half-generation hardware upgrade
Remote System Upgrade in Three Simple Steps
As shown in Figure 3, remote system upgrades are enabled in three simple steps using Stratix III FPGAs and flash memory:
- An upgrade is sent from the development location through a network to the Stratix III FPGA
- The controller within the Stratix III FPGA stores the upgrade in the external memory
- The memory device upgrades the Stratix III FPGA with the new data
Figure 3. Remote Upgrade to Systems with a Stratix III FPGA
Stratix III FPGAs feature a dedicated recovery circuitry. This circuitry guarantees "always operational" functionality by ensuring that whenever an error occurs, whether during data transmission or device configuration, the Stratix III FPGA always returns to a known state to operate correctly.
Information about the error is available to the controller to take further actions. The built-in design security feature of Stratix III FPGAs allows the upgrade data to be encrypted and transmitted securely over the network.
With remote system upgrades, Stratix III FPGAs take systems to the forefront of technology faster and keep them ahead of the competition longer. Stratix III FPGAs provide significant time-to-market benefits for the fastest possible system design and deployment, all with the ease and assurance of performing upgrades at a later time. New features and support for evolving protocols can be easily added, while system performance can increase over time with design optimization.
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