Leveraging Industry Standards for User Programmable FPGA Instrumentation

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are used extensively in today's electronic assemblies and test engineers are also choosing to incorporate FPGA-based instrumentation as part of their functional test solutions. Today there are a variety of user-programmable FPGA-based instruments available to test engineers which can be used to support a wide range of applications and interfaces. These instruments employ a range of programming tools and architectures. However, to ensure maximum flexibility and long-term / organic support for test systems and applications, both the suppliers and end-users of these instruments need to focus on employing industry standards. This paper discusses the use of industry standard design tools, the proper use of intellectual property (IP), and the use/adoption of standardized FPGA interfaces such as the ANSI/VITA 57 standard.