Hardware and software infrastructure for a family of floating-gate based FPAAs

Analog circuits and systems research and education can benefit from the flexibility provided by large-scale Field Programmable Analog Arrays (FPAAs). This paper presents the hardware and software infrastructure supporting the use of a family of floating-gate based FPAAs being developed at Georgia Tech. This infrastructure is compact and portable and provides the user with a comprehensive set of tools for custom analog circuit design and implementation. The infrastructure includes the FPAA IC, discrete ADC, DAC and amplifier ICs, a 32-Bit ARM based microcontroller for interfacing the FPAA with the user´s computer, and Matlab and targeting software. The FPAA hardware communicates with Matlab over a USB connection. The USB connection also provides the hardware´s power. The software tools include three major systems: a Matlab Simulink FPAA program, a SPICE to FPAA compiler called GRASPER, and a visualization tool called RAT. The hardware consists of two custom PCB designs which include a main board used to program and control an FPAA IC and an FPAA IC adaptor board used to interface a QFP packaged FPAA IC with the 100 pin ZIF socket on the main programming and control board.