When faced with a situation in which a set of obsolete Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
need to be replaced, it is important to verify the functionality of the new set of FPGAs,
preferably without having to re-test the whole system into which they are installed. Terotest
can supply systems designed to test the new and old FPGAs alongside one another. An example of
such a system being used for FPGA verification is outlined below.
The Problem
The problem of substituting old FPGAs for new ones within a system was encountered by a leading UK
Aerospace manufacturer, who subsequently turned to the UK based company Ensilica to redesign them
a full set of 5 devices using modern equivalent FPGAs.
Having finalised the designs, the new FPGA devices needed to be tested against their obsolete counterparts,
in order to verify their functionality. Without such verification, an entire set of
flight ready tests would have been necessary for the project, incurring large investments of both
time and money.
The Solution
Terotest were commissioned to produce an FPGA test system that would test both the old and new FPGA
designs against a set of Test Vectors produced via design simulation. These vectors required real
time testing at clock speeds up to 32MHz with over 11 million test patterns. Terotest designed the
test system based around the Geotest GX7600
PXIe 8 slot chassis and the GX5292 Dynamically Controlled
High Speed Digital I/O PXI card. The vectors were controlled using Geotest's
DIOEasy software, which
enabled the vectors to be imported directly from the simulator output and then made for quick and
easy pass / fail result checking.
If you are faced with a similar problem please contact Terotest to discuss how we can be of assistance.
More Information
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