FPGA s for video applications

FPGAs are used in multiple areas of image and video processing today. This is based on the fact that FPGAs can easily be used to integrate customer specific add-ons into a product and also allow efficient design of products with non consumer quantities.

It is very common that there are at least two options to realize an application for imaging and video processing if an ASIC is not considered: using DPSs or FPGAs. For Applications addressing the interpretation of images or videos (e.g. face recognition) DSPs can usually do a great job. Nevertheless, applications that deal with scaling, synchronizing and image transmission can utilize the advantages of the FPGA Technology. Often SRAM based FPGAs or a combination of SRAM and FLASH Technology are used. A typical example for a low power SRAM FPGA is the ECP3 Family from Lattice Semiconductor. The XP2 Family is using a combination of SRAM and FLASH and does not need external SPI devices.

XP2 FPGAs are great for designing Interfaces (e.g. for Sensor connections in cameras) or for synchronizing multiple video streams. The SRAM based ECP3 devices with up to 149.000 Look Up Tables can be used to realize for example complex display controllers.