Lattice introduces Certus-NX, the second generation of FD-SOI technology

Lattice Semiconductor announced the launch of the new Lattice Certus-NX family of FPGas. This family of devices has the leading IO density in the general-purpose FPGA market, with up to twice the IO density per square millimeter of comparable FPGA competitors. Certus-NX FPGas offer exceptional low power consumption, small size, high reliability, and instantaneous startup, and support high-speed PCI Express (PCIe) and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for data co-processing, signal bridging, and system control.

Certus-NX FPgas target a range of applications from data processing in automated industrial equipment to system management in communications infrastructure. Lattice Nexus? Certus-NX is the industry's first low-power FPGA technology platform based on the 28 nm FD-SOI process, and the CERtUS-NX device is the second FPGA family developed on this platform. The launch of Certus-NX marks Lattice's second product family in just six months under the guidance of its new product development strategy.

Thanks to FD-SOI technology, the programmable matrix bias function of the Certus-NX FPGA can be operated in either high performance or low power mode depending on the user's application requirements. Compared to similar FPgas, the power consumption of this family of devices can be reduced by up to four times.

Pu Xiaoshuang, Lattice's director of field technical support, said that with the development of technologies such as industrial automation and 5G, developers began to look to add processing and interconnection functions to network edge applications. To follow this trend, these devices need low-power processing hardware that supports common interfaces such as PCIe and Gigabit Ethernet. Device developers also need an easy-to-use, unified development platform that provides the hardware, software, and IP needed to bring products to market quickly.

Density increases while size decreases

With FD-SOI technology and new architectural innovations, Lattice's Certus-NX can achieve one-third the area of comparable products, twice the I/O density of comparable competitors, and faster differential I/O speeds, providing greater design flexibility and robust support for bridging applications.

The Certus-NX also enables ultra-fast device configurations via SPI memory, up to 12 times faster than comparable FPGA competitors. A single I/O configuration is only 3 ms, and the entire device startup time is only 8-14 ms, suitable for industrial and other areas where response speed is required.

Linley Gwennap, Principal Analyst at Linley Group, said: "Certus-NX has unique innovative features that make it stand out. Lattice offers a smaller package size, higher IO density, and lower power consumption than competing FPGA products with similar gate counts."

Safer and more reliable

To protect the device's bit stream from unauthorized access/alteration/copying, the Certus-NX FPGA supports AES-256 encryption and leading ECDSA certification to protect the device throughout its lifecycle.

In terms of reliability, thanks to FD-SOI technology, Lattice's product soft error rate is reduced by 100 times compared to competitors, and SER can be further reduced if on-chip SEC and ECC modules are considered. Moreover, the products meet the requirements of industrial wide temperature.

Sanjeev Kumar, CEO of Logic Fruit Technologies, said: "As an FPGA design company, we see serial protocols such as PCIe and Ethernet being widely used for chip connectivity in systems such as 5G and IoT. Lattice's latest generation of Certus-NX FPGas not only supports these standards, but also delivers high density I/O while greatly reducing power consumption and overall device design size. These FPgas help us quickly adapt to our customers' changing and challenging interconnect and performance needs."

Gordon Hands, Director of Product Marketing at Lattice, said: "Thanks to innovations at the system, architecture and circuit levels of Lattice's Nexus development platform, we are able to accelerate the introduction of new products and provide customers with more options as they evaluate the performance and power requirements of their applications. "Certus-NX provides parallel processing capabilities and flexible IO support to enable innovative device designs that redefine what developers expect from general-purpose FPGas."