Actalent Upgrades Semiconductor Manufacturer's FPGAs and Circuit Designs

The Client

A U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturer.

The Challenge

The client needed to refresh numerous FPGA’s and high-speed mixed signal circuit board assemblies in several of their semiconductor lithography machines. Nearing end-of-life, the FPGA platform technology they had been using couldn’t support their emerging needs, nor their ability to design chips for reliability, manufacturability, serviceability and extended product life.

Thus, the client had to achieve the following objectives:

• Move from Stratix and Cyclone to Arria10 devices.
• Update their Quartus FPGA development tools and functional models to the current versions.
• Be able to utilize Mentor Expedition layout with signal integrity and timing analysis capability.
• Implement new circuit assembly features and functionality.
• Address component obsolescence, which incorporated supply chain analysis, technology upgrades and the design of a scalable new board level power distribution architecture.

The Actalent Solution

Upon gathering the client’s requirements, Actalent’s team created accurate and detailed project schedules for both the FPGA work and the circuit design aspects of every individual project.

Next, we assigned dedicated resources in our engineering design centers in Chicago, Raleigh, NC, and Troy, MI. -- with expertise in FPGA design, mixed signal circuit board design and layout, and test bench development – to undertake each deliverable.

From the start, each team member was trained in the client’s way of working, which included initially using their training systems. As the projects progressed, we then integrated the training materials into Actalent’s training system.

The Results

Achieving on-time and first-time right delivery, Actalent accomplished the following results:

• Reviewed the existing hardware designs and properly identified every component of each system that needed to be replaced and/or redesigned.
• Transitioned the client from Stratix and Cyclone to Arria10 and completed all architectural planning.
• Redesigned the board level power distribution architectures.
• Performed the signal integrity analysis of all critical board traces for timing, skew, signal quality, and delays.
• Successfully completed printed circuit board layouts (8 to 24 layers) to exacting client standards for reliability, testability, and expected service life.
• Re-designed and verified the FPGAs using VHDL and System Verilog.
• Designed and implemented robust Verilog system test benches with randomization and constrained testing.
• Initiated and presented technical trade-off studies with recommendations to mitigate technical risk, reduce cost and increase performance of the system operation.
• Successfully incorporated complex third-party IP modules, such as GigEVision.

Beyond being satisfied with the results, the client was most impressed with Actalent’s electrical, hardware and FPGA engineering capabilities, plus our project management expertise and overall versatility.