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Device Comparison Device Comparison Third-Generation Architecture Third-Generation Architecture Total System Cost Total System Cost IP & Solutions IP & Solutions Design Software Design Software Starter Kits & Programming Starter Kits & Programming
 ProASIC3/E    ProASIC3 nano    ProASIC3L  

ProASIC3

Low-Power FPGAs

The ProASIC3 families of flash-based FPGAs, which include ProASIC3/E, ProASIC3 nano, and ProASIC3L, offer a breakthrough in power, price, performance, density, and features for today's most demanding high-volume applications. ProASIC3 devices support the ARM® Cortex™-M1 and ARM7™ soft processor IP cores, offering the benefits of programmability and time-to-market at a cost as low as $0.49. The ProASIC3 families are based on nonvolatile flash technology and support 10 k to 3 M gates, up to 620 I/Os.

In addition to supporting portable, consumer, industrial, communications and medical applications with commercial and industrial temperature devices, Actel also offers ProASIC3 FPGAs with specialized screening for automotive and military systems.

Key Features
  • Low-power consumption
  • As low as $0.49 unit cost
  • Lowest total system cost
  • 1.2 V or 1.5 V support
  • Cost-optimized, reprogrammable, and nonvolatile
  • Supports 128-bit AES decryption for device configuration
  • Single chip and live at power-up
  • 1,024 bits of user flash memory
  • Advanced I/O structure
  • ARM Cortex-M1 processor support
  • Immune to configuration loss due to atmospheric neutrons (firm errors)
  • Available in automotive (T-Grade) and military temperature grade
  • ISO/TS 16949:2002 certified

The ProASIC3 series includes:

Device Comparison
ProASIC3 Series ProASIC3/E ProASIC3 nano ProASIC3L
ARM-Enabled M1 ProASIC3/E   M1 ProASIC3L
M7 ProASIC3  
Overview The low-power, low-cost FPGA solution Lowest cost solution with enhanced I/O capabilities The FPGA that balances low power, performance, and low cost
System Gates 15 k - 3 M 10 k - 250 k 250 k - 3 M
Max User I/Os 620 71 620
Power Consumption 3 mW 3 mW 330 µW

Third-Generation Architecture

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Total System Cost

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IP and Solutions

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IP Cores Search for available IP Cores for each ProASIC3 device:

Technology Solutions
Low Power Maximizes power savings with very limited power-on current surge and no high-current transition period, both of which occur on many FPGAs. Offers low dynamic power consumption.
Low Cost Starting at $0.49, the world’s lowest cost FPGA solution, offering industry-leading unit cost and lowest total system cost.
High Performance Enhanced, high-performance architecture up to 350 MHz operation and best-in-class logic utilization.
OneChip is all you need. Does not require additional configuration nonvolatile memory in order to load the device configuration data at every system power-up, which reduces cost and increases security and system reliability.
Secure ISP Supports built-in AES decryption engine and industry-leading flash-based AES-128 key for secure remote field updates over public networks with encrypted bitstream.
User Nonvolatile Memory 1,024 bits of on-chip, user accessible, nonvolatile FlashROM that can be used in diverse system applications.
Live at Power-Up Greatly simplifies system design, making the device available to perform critical system setup tasks and reduce bill-of-materials costs and PCB area.
Secure Utilizes a 128-bit flash-based lock and inherent flash technology features, providing the most impenetrable security for programmable logic designs. » More
Firm Errors Flash cell configuration element cannot be altered by high-energy neutrons and is therefore immune, unlike SRAM-based FPGAs.
ARM Cortex-M1 Processor Uses industry-standard FPGA-optimized Cortex-M1 with no upfront licensing fees and royalties. » More
ARM7 Soft Core Uses industry-standard ARM7 with no upfront licensing fees and no royalties.

Design Software

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Libero IDELibero® Integrated Design Environment (IDE) is Actel's comprehensive software toolset for designing with IGLOO devices, enabling you to quickly manage and optimize your design to its lowest power capabilities and further reduce power consumption using automatic power-driven layout (PDL). Libero IDE's next generation SmartDesign tool ensures fast time-to-market with its advanced features for creation of simple designs or complex processor-based and bus-based designs. Libero IDE also includes cutting edge power analysis capability with SmartPower, which identifies specific points in the design where power can be reduced.

Actel's SoftConsole is a free software development environment, enabling the rapid production of C and C++ executables for ARM Cortex-M1 processors, and is compatible with the Libero IDE design flow.

ProASIC3 designs can be migrated to attain the low-power benefits of IGLOO devices, or new designs can be created from the start. Learn more about Libero IDE flows and tools.

Starter Kits and Programming

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The ProASIC3 Starter Kits provide complete evaluation solutions that enable quick evaluation and design prototyping of Actel ProASIC3, Cortex-M1-enabled ProASIC3, and CoreMP7-enabled ProASIC3 devices . The ProASIC3 Starter Kit is available in two versions, one for prototyping and one lower-cost version for simple evaluation.

FlashPro3 is the ideal low-cost programmer for in-system programming of IGLOO devices. Up to 15 of these programmers may be cascaded in parallel via powered USB hubs to give a volume ISP solution for pre-assembled boards featuring IGLOO devices.

Silicon Sculptor 3 programmer is the ideal engineering pre-programmer for IGLOO devices, where each device may be programmed without having it assembled into a PCB. The Silicon Sculptor 3 includes a high-speed USB 2.0 interface that allows a customer to connect as many as 12 programmers to a single PC.

Identify Actel Edition (AE) logic analysis software from Synplicity provides embedded debug capbilities for IGLOO devices. It is included in the Libero IDE Windows DVD or is available for download.