Anti Fuse Programmed FPGA

[bilal_oct]

Dear all,

I am wondering about Anti Fuse technology.

Can anyone briefly describe here what is the main difference beteen Anti Fuse technology and other technologies for FPGA ? The FPGA's based on Anti Fuse technology are just one time programable ? or can we can program them several times ?

Best regards,
Bilal

 

[std_match]

The anti-fuse FPGA's can only be programmed once.
One difference from "normal" FPGA's is that they are ready immediately when apply power.
The SRAM-based FPGA's from Xilinx and Altera must be loaded with a bit pattern before they can do anything.

Lattice has SRAM-based FPGA's with an internal shadow Flash memory, so the bit pattern can be loaded automatically when you apply power.
The Xilinx and Altera parts can also load the bit pattern automatically, but only from an external memory.

All SRAM-based FPGA's can have the logic function destroyed by cosmic radiation (until the next loading of the bit pattern).
Becaus of this, the anti-fuse technology is used for FPGA's in space applications.