2. Description of FPGA components

FPGAs are VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) components. They are user-programmable and essentially consist of three parts:

• a matrix of Configurable Logic Blocks (CLB) ;

• configurable input/output blocks ;

• a network of programmable interconnections.

Figure 1 shows the generic architecture of an FPGA.

There are several FPGA component manufacturers, including Actel, Xilinx and Altera (see [Doc. D 2 902] ). These manufacturers use different technologies to build FPGAs. Among these technologies, those that enable FPGAs to be reprogrammed...