A key benefit of programmable logic devices, such as FPGAs and CPLDs, is their programmability. These devices are typically deployed with a unique design intended to address application-specific problems. And because of these problems, many embedded systems that deploy programmable products benefit greatly from the ability to update their design and configuration after manufacturing. An upgrade feature is useful for multiple end-applications.
Today’s designers face a major challenge: How do I pack more functionality into a board, and do it faster and cheaper? The go-to approach to solving this problem is to implement data path or payload functions using highly integrated ASICs and SoCs. However, the design is not complete by simply connecting all the large devices together.