Combining powerful new EDA software, configurable analog modules (CAMs), and programmable silicon, Anadigm's VORTEX family reduces the time required for analog design implementations from months to minutes. With this second-generation family, designers can construct complex analog functions with a drag-and-drop EDA tool and adjust functionality directly in automatically generated C-code. In a breakthrough that puts analog techniques in the hands of the system designer, now analog functions can be controlled, updated, and manipulated by the system processor in real time.

"With the VORTEX family, we're bringing analog into alignment with the industry trend toward integrated reconfigurable hardware where field-programmable systems are now converging," said Mike Kay, Anadigm president and CEO. "With design cycles constantly accelerating, system designers are turning to programmable systems to stay competitive. Anadigm's VORTEX family fully integrates analog into these systems, giving designers the power to implement analog functions in reconfigurable hardware and to update these functions from within the software."

FPAAs give designers and manufacturers increased flexibility, versatility, and product lifetime by allowing applications-specific analog circuitry to be programmed during printed circuit board assembly, in the field, or by an embedded microcontroller within the end system. By combining easy-to-use EDA tools with pre-tested and pre-qualified silicon, time to solution is drastically reduced compared with an analog ASIC or a discrete implementation.

Automatic C-code generation and the dynamic reconfigurability provided by Anadigm's VORTEX family are breakthrough capabilities in the analog space, allowing analog functions to be controlled as a peripheral in an embedded microcontroller-based system. FPAA functionality can now be modified on the fly by reloading new device configurations in real time, allowing the device operation to be "time-sliced," eliminating the need for multiple circuits to handle multiple analog functions. Dynamic reconfigurability can also be used to provide continuous operating point monitoring as well as to compensate for component aging and environmental changes.

The programmability of Anadigm's VORTEX family additionally allows manufacturers to use a single component for multiple applications or product variants. For example, sensor module manufacturers can now make a single FPAA-based signal conditioning front end that can be used to interface with a wide range of sensors simply by reconfiguring the FPAA. Anadigm's VORTEX family consists of four distinct elements:

AnadigmDesigner 2 - an advanced EDA tool that enables the design and implementation of dynamically reconfigurable analog circuits within a matter of minutes. With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, AnadigmDesigner2 allows complete analog systems to be built rapidly, simulated immediately, and then downloaded to the FPAA chip for testing and validation. Automatic generation of C-code that describes the analog functions performed by the FPAA allows these to be adjusted and controlled directly by a microprocessor within an embedded system. The process by which the designer instructs AnadigmDesigner2 to create the API to be used by the system processor to execute reconfigurability is completely automated.

Configurable Analog Modules - Anadigm provides a growing library of configurable analog modules (CAMs), each of which can be used to implement a range of user-parameterizable analog functions. CAMs greatly simplify the design of complex analog systems by allowing the designer to work at a higher level of abstraction in describing the system functionality.

AN220E04 FPAA Silicon - The AN220E04 is the industry's first field-programmable analog array (FPAA) that can be dynamically reconfigured to allow real-time control, updating, and manipulation of analog functions by microprocessors in a wide range of electronic systems. A single AN220E04 can thus be programmed to implement multiple analog functions and/or to adapt on-the-fly to maintain precision operation despite system degradation and aging. Based on a fully differential switched capacitor technology with an analog switch fabric, the second-generation AN220E04 has been redesigned to boost device functionality and performance.

Development System - A flexible, single-chip development system board is available to help designers prototype analog circuits and systems. The board is easy to use and provides features that simplify input/output connections as well as configuration expansion options. In conjunction with AnadigmDesigner2, this development board is an ideal vehicle for designers to explore programmable analog design.

Even though Anadigm itself was formed in early 2000, the technology involved goes way back to the early FPGA efforts at Pilkington Electronics and Motorola. Anadigm now describes itself as a venture-backed technology spin-off of Motorola. Its goal is to bring the convenience of PLDs to the analog world.

Lattice Semiconductor and several other small companies are working on programmable analog devices. Lattice has had some success with its ispPAC line of programmable analog devices that use a fundamentally different technology than the one employed by Anadigm. Lattice's filters are continuous time implementations using RC networks and operational amplifiers. This is a simpler and somewhat cheaper, but not as versatile, approach as the switched-capacitor technology used by Anadigm.

One of the advantages claimed by Anadigm is that their devices can operate down to DC, while the Lattice parts can not. As a result, Anadigm says that Lattice parts can not be used to implement band pass filters. In addition, the Anadigm parts can implement many more analog functions than the Lattice ispPACs.

Anadigm has significantly improved the devices and design tools over its first generation offerings. The new tools and FPAAs have been in use at some 34 beta customers for eight weeks.

The new AN220E04 contains a number of improvements over the first generation AN10E40. The major technical difference is the new device is fully differential, compared with the single-ended switched capacitor and analog fabric in the first part. This results in superior common-mode rejection that leads to an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio and better linearity.

The configurable analog blocks in the AN220E04 have been significantly enhanced to enable the performance of such advanced analog functions as sensor response linearization and arbitrary waveform synthesis. The bandwidth of the new device is greater than 2 MHz, compared with 250 kHz for its predecessor. In addition, the AN220E04 is dynamically reconfigurable, which enables the real-time control of analog systems.

According to the company, its new design tool, AnadigmDesigner2, allows designers to develop their designs using FPAAs that can be reconfigured by the microcontroller in real-time to change the function performed within a system or to adapt on-the-fly to maintain precision despite system degradation and aging. One of the more successful applications of the dynamically reconfigurable feature has been in the control loop for the laser diode biasing circuit in optical telecommunications systems. It has been possible to dynamically control both the output power and the wavelength with this approach.

Anadigm has constructed its design tool, AnadigmDesign2, so that the details of the circuit implementation are hidden from the designer by using a drag-and-drop graphical interface. Filters can be designed by specifying the filter type and then manipulating a graphical representation of the filter response until the desired results are obtained. The software then configures the FPAA to meet these requirements.