A novel system on a programmable chip design of a fastflex data controller

Transmitton Ltd. is a competitive manufacturer of industrial control equipment in the UK. The company has embarked on a process of re-designing its products, using hardware description languages (HDLs) and targeting reprogrammable devices-field programmable gate arrays (FPGA´s) for implementation. This paper presents a novel approach to the redesign of the existing discrete integrated circuits used in Transmitton´s fastflex range of products, as system on a programmable chip. This marks the objective of ongoing research collaboration between the company and Anglia Polytechnic University, UK. The advantages of applying the HDL-based methodology consist of: i) using the same environment for modelling, design and implementation, ii) a computer platform independent model (VHDL files are ASCII files), iii) the ability to reuse components of the model in different data-processing applications (in combination with other models to form complex controller systems), iv) the prototyping via FPGA implementation, giving extra benefits. The new university led approach will bring important benefits to the company in terms of commercial competitiveness, intellectual property (IP) ownership, flexibility in the range of in-house developed systems and short time to market for new products.