GOWIN GW5AT-15 low-cost FPGA provides high-speed video interfaces up to 4K at 120 FPS

GOWIN Semiconductor has just announced the “Arora V” GW5AT-15 FPGA designed for high-speed video interfaces up to 4K at 120 FPS in space-constrained consumer and automotive applications. Manufactured with TSMC’s 22nm LP process, the new FPGA offers high-performance 12.5 Gbps SerDes, PCIe 3.0, MIPI CPHY, and DPHY interfaces.

The GW5AT-15 FPGA also provides 15K LUTs of programmable logic, 118kbit of shadow SRAM, 630kbit of block SRAM (BSRAM), optional 64Mbit or 128Mbit of pseudo-SRAM (PSRAM), and optional 8Mbit of NOR Flash in a tiny 4.9mm x 5.3mm WLCSP package. Target applications include AR/VR headsets, 4K gaming tablets, and car infotainment systems.

GOWIN GW5AT-15 FPGA specifications:

• FPGA Fabric
  • 15120 logic elements (LUT4)
  • 118kbit of shadow SRAM
  • 630kbit of block SRAM (BSRAM) arranged as 35 x 18kbit
  • 28x DSP slices, 12x DSP Lite slices
•  PSRAM
  • GW5ART-15: 64Mbit (in MG132P package) or 128Mbit (in CM90P package) of pseudo SRAM (PSRAM)
  • GW5ANRT-15: 64Mbit PSRAM
• DDR – Up to 1333 Mbps DDR3 (except GW5AT-15 without DDR support)
• Storage – GW5ANT-15 and GW5ANRT-15: 8Mbit of NOR Flash
• JPEG encoder/decoder
• Video Input/Output Interfaces
  • 1.25 Gbps LVDS
  • 4-lane MIPI D-PHY operating at up to 2.5Gbps/lane
  • 3-lane MIPI C-PHY operating at up to 5.75Gbps/lane
• Other Interfaces
  • 4x transceivers between 270 Mbps and 12.5 Gbps
  • Hardcore 4-lane PCIe 3.0 hard
  • On-chip USB 3.x and USB 2.x PHYs
  • ADC
  • 4x GPIO banks for up to 53 GPIOs
• Clocks
  • 2x on-chip PLLs
  • 16x global clocks
  • 2x high-speed clocks
• Core voltage – 0.9V
• Packages
  • GW5AT-15 – MG132 MBGA 8x8mm with 53 user I/Os
  • GW5ART-15
    • CM90P CM 5.3 x 4.9mm with 23 user I/Os, 128MBit PSRAM, no MIPI C-PHY
    • MG132P MBGA – 8x8mm with 38 user I/Os, 64Mbit SPRAM
  • GW5ANT-15 – MG132 MBGA 8x8mm with 47 user I/Os, 8Mbit NOR flash
  • GW5ANRT-15 – MG132 MBGA 8x8mm with 32 user I/Os, 64Mbit PSRAM, 8Mbit NOR flash
• Manufacturing process – TSMC 22nm LP

GOWIN Semiconductor also provides some confusing notes about transceiver speeds (since there aren’t any PBGA or FCPBGA packages) that conflict with the specs above:

• Tranceivers in PBGA packages support data rates up to 8 Gbps.
• Tranceivers in FCPBGA packages support data rates up to 12.5 Gbps.
• Transceivers in the MBGA package can reach speeds up to 10.3125 Gbps, and when the rate exceeds 8 Gbps, only onboard interconnects are supported, not backplane applications.

Like other Arova V FPGA, the new GW5AT-15 FPGA family is supported by the GOWIN EDA FPGA design environment with IP cores, reference designs, and an FPGA design tool that supports the SystemVerilog, Verilog, and VHDL programming languages. The company says the GOWIN EDA can be downloaded for free (email registration needed) with no license required, although I can see an “Apply License” section on the website…

GOWIN’s CEO Jason Zhu explains the GW5AT-15 FPGA fills the gap between expensive FPGA that were traditionally used for high-speed display and camera interfaces, and cheaper FPGA that can not deliver the required SerDes performance:

The market for high-speed display and camera interfaces has been stuck with a choice of high-end FPGAs which are large, expensive and power-hungry, or low-end FPGAs with inadequate SerDes performance. Our latest Arora-V device perfectly fills the gap, offering a unique hard-core MIPI C-PHY and D-PHY capability in a small and highly affordable FPGA.

The GW5AT-15 is available for sampling now from GOWIN or any authorized distributor. More details can be found on the product page and in the press release, and the company is currently showcasing the Arora-V products and the GOWIN EDA development environment at the Sensors Converge Expo in Santa Clara, California, US taking place on June 25-26, 2024. Sipeed has made a few FPGA boards based on GOWIN FPGA such as the Tang Nano 20K, so maybe we’ll soon see a new Sipeed GW5AT-15 board in due time.

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