What microcontrollers with programmable logic built in (FPGA/CPLD like) are available on the market?

Question

Inspired by question I would like to ask what microcontrollers with CPLD or FPGA-like functions build in are available? The most interesting would be low-cost ones in friendly packages (non-BGA). The CPLD/FPGA portion should be big enough to allow implementing fairly complicated state machine (10+ states), fairly big logic function (10+ inputs), fairly big counters and shift registers (8+ bits) and be able to run at tens of MHz frequencies. Preferable method of design input for programmable logic function should be HDL based (Verilog or VHDL).

So far I have found two examples:
1) FPSLIC from Atmel
2) PSOC3 and PSOC5 from Cypress (those are not available yet, except in samples volume)

Answer 1

Xilinx has FPGAs with PowerPC 440 and 405 hard processors. Actel has FPGAs with ARM Cortex-M3 cores.

Both Xilinx and Altera have IP for soft processors - the MicroBlaze and NIOS II - and there are several similar free processors available on the Open Cores web site.

• MattG: I agree.. the original poster is looking at it wrong. Instead of looking for microprocessors with built in programmable logic, look for FPGAs with processors built in, or at least processor cores which can be loaded in a design. I've seen a lot of that cropping up recently.

Answer 2

Check out Actel's SmartFusion - they combine a FPGA with an ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller, as well as some pretty nifty analog circuitry. This evaluation kit is pretty reasonably priced for what it does.

Answer 3

Check out Atmel - they make an AVR + FPGA...

http://www.atmel.com/products/fpslic/default.asp

Answer 4

There are a couple of new PICs with a tiny amount of programmable logic - PIC10F322 and PIC16F1507.

Answer 5

Regarding Actel's SmartFusion, there is also a uClinux evaluation kit that combines a low-cost eval platform for SmartFusion with a uClinux port running on the Cortex-M3 processor core of SmartFusion.

Answer 6

Analog Devices ARM microcontrollers include a PLA, however it might be too small for the logic you're trying to embed.

• ADuC7028

Both Xilinx and Altera are readying new product lines which embed dual-core ARM hard cores connected to the FPGA fabric. But the package is not going to be so friendly, and costs will be comparable to other FPGAs of the same complexity.

• Mark Lakata: Xilinx has their new product line already (Zync) but it will be far from simple.

Answer 7

Xmos I've never used them although have looked in to them.

• Connor Wolf: While the XMOS devices are quite interesting, they do not have any programmable logic sections. It's purely a microprocessor, albeit with hardware-multithreading, which lets it act like it has programmable logic, with the help of some clever coding.