Control Systems
In control systems, FPGAs offers unique possibilities in terms of high speed low latency signal handling, orchestration of different devices, application specific digital filtering, feedback loops, sensors fusion.
They are essential for demanding real time applications.
In the field of instrumentation, they are used for high speed ADC/DAC boards, frame grabbers, AWGs, PIDs, Quantum Control, etc.
Real time processing & Edge AI
In processing applications, FPGA offer determinism and application tailored parallelism of processing tasks. It is required for real time computations for applications such as video stream, digital filtering, hardware accelerated computation workloads. For Edge AI, FPGAs enable the execution of artificial intelligence algorithms directly on devices, reducing latency and improving energy efficiency.
learn moreWhat we do
We specialize in designing efficient FPGA-based control and processing systems for instruments. We combine relevant low level technologies to deliver high performance easy to use control and processing units.
We leverage on our experience in optical/photonics/quantum instruments development to bridge the gap between physics and embedded worlds, therefore accelerating product development.
Design
From application requirements to numerical design. Get an answer about the ressources required and the performance !
Prototypes
From available modules, chips and boards to working prototype. Get the box in your lab !
A few things we’re great at
We believe that the key in complex development is to efficiently distinguish abstraction levels, defining smart reliable subsystems that make a complete system
LOW LEVEL HDL IMPLEMENTATION
Hardware Description Languages are not familiar for many because they do not rely on sequential definition of actions.
On the contrary, parallelism of processes is naturally accessible and resynchronization is made with clocks. This is adapted to low latency, real time tasks such as data transfer, communication protocols, real time filtering, real time video analysis etc. Feel free to contact us for HDL design/support.COMPONENTS SELECTION
FPGA SoC chips are very complex and it is often difficult to go from application needs to chip selection.
We can provide consulting services for chips/board comparison with respect to fabric size, DSP (digital signal processing) blocks, internal/external memory, Intellectual Property (IP) blocks. On top of FPGA fabric & blocks, CPU cores also offer large possibilities in system design. Last but not least, as FPGA SoC modules are often proposed in mezzanine module, interfaces with daughter boards need to be wisely chosen. Feel free to contact us for assistance on bus selection/ performances in throughput, latency etc.EMBEDDED INTELLIGENCE
Embedded Intelligence refers to ressources allocated to the control, communication, monitoring, processing and automation of an embedded system, eg a system for which the ressources are constrained and the functionalities specific.
The word ‘Intelligence’ is chosen because the almost infinite richness of software defined functional behaviours that can be implemented. Indeed, as opposed to analogic instrumentation for which the set of functionalities is chosen at design, digitally reprogrammable instrumentation offers flexibility and therefore a richness in architectures. On top of classical state machines, filters, etc., custom hybrid hardware/software architectures can be implemented. For instance, FPGA can be used to route signals & data to other chips that are more relevant the tasks (CPU, GPU).SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
Instrumentation usually require skills across many fields : optics, mechanics electronics, software, thermal engineering, etc.
In the field of FPGA SoC embedded systems, we can even zoom into different expertises : numerical design, board design, embedded software (embedded linux/RTOS/ etc/). At Fourier Instruments we are convinced that successful system architectures rely on an minimal understanding of the different expertises so that the tradeoff between performance/complexity is well balanced. We also believe that interface with the final user is important. It is therefore key to be able to translate high level application needs into low level existing technologies breakdown.contact[at]fourierinstruments[dot]com
Our Team
We have a passion for efficient design, tools and validation. We believe that mastering control and processing of experiments/instruments is at the heart of effective hardware development.
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