Further expanding its low-power FPGA-based offerings for the portable market, Actel has announced two plug-in daughtercards developed to manage human machine interface (HMI) and miniature motor control functionality. The new cards are offered as plug-ins to Actel’s popular IGLOO Icicle Kit.

As keypads, LEDs for backlight and display, and motors have grown commonplace, portable designers have typically relied on microcontrollers, application-specific standard products (ASSPs) or complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) to handle HMI and miniature motor control functions. However, microcontrollers and ASSPs do not provide the most flexibility and CPLDs do not offer the levels of integration or sophistication of FPGAs.

Co-developed with partners Ishnatek, a design services company, and Avnet Memec, the new HMI and miniature motor control solutions provide a platform-based design approach, enabling designers to address changing requirements, implement custom algorithms, and make design changes through device reprogramming.

The HMI daughtercard demonstrates keypad control, brightness control for white LEDs, colour mixing for red, green blue (RGB) LEDs and tone generation, which is beneficial for applications like smart phones, portable gaming consoles and remote control devices.

The motor control daughtercard demonstrates brushless DC and stepper motor control and can support a variety of functions often found in portable medical, industrial and consumer applications, such as respirators, infusion and volumetric pumps, smart phones and security cameras.