A model for predicting the obsolescence trend of FPGA

Obsolescence makes equipments supporting and maintaining hard and costly. It hurts the equipments reliability seriously. In the past decades, electronic technology has developed very rapidly causing components (and particularly the FPGAs) to have a shortened life span. So the problem of electronic component obsolescence in complex electronic or long life systems such as aircraft submarines and ships is getting more and more severe, therefore has heighten the interest of researchers. This paper analyses the FPGA obsolescence drivers, on based of which it introduces some traditional methods to deal with obsolescence, and proposes a model to predict the obsolescence trend of FPGA. It can be a reference for system designers selecting FPGAs. For the purpose of verifying the model, XC4085 is used to be an example.