FPGA Horizons Newsletter 14

Just Launched: FPGA Horizons Lab Notes

One of the reasons many years ago I started the MicroZed Chronicles was to share not only my love of FPGA but also sharing knowledge. The conference and the journal of course follow that lineage of sharing information.

Today we are launching Lab Notes: these lab notes are intended as deeply technical reference material. The initial lab notes examine ADC and DAC testing, building resilient designs and IO standards. The idea is to provide useful reference material from those who have really been there and done it. Over the next few months you will see several other lab notes being created. If you want to create one or have a suggestion then let me know.

Horizons London is only a few weeks out and as you can see it is going to be something special.

We will be hosting an Explorer Zone to allow you to get hands on with the 0.5 mm pitch Explorer board.

Thanks to AMD we have been able to increase the size of the AMD lab on day two. It is definitely something you want to attend if possible.

Do not be like many people last year who could not get a ticket. Make sure to get your tickets ASAP.

Adam Taylor

Introducing FPGA Horizons Lab Notes

Expand your own FPGA Horizons with Lab Notes -our detailed technical guides

FPGA Horizons Lab Notes deliver practical engineering guidance, hands‑on walkthroughs, and reproducible workflows for real‑world FPGA design challenges. Each Lab Note focuses on a single, clearly defined technique and shows you how to implement it using real tools, real constraints, and real hardware. They’re written by engineers, for engineers, to help you build, debug, and verify FPGA designs with confidence.

Explore Lab Notes here >

FPGA Horizons London 26

AMD Workshop: more spaces added

Due to unprecedented demand, and support from AMD, we have been able to secure a larger space for the AMD workshop – Agentic AI Workflows for Modern Adaptive SoC Development.

We have reopened applications for the workshop. If you already have a ticket for the event and would now like to apply for AMD’s workshop, please visit the application form below.

We also have some last remaining slots on the Efinix and Lattice workshops. If you already have your ticket, you can still apply below.

Find out more about the workshops >

Apply for a workshop place >

With more than 40 vendors exhibiting, London 26 is the perfect opportunity to get all your questions answered – in one day and one place.

From the blog…

Adam Taylor explores some of the Tech Talks at London 26.

Where AI is taking modern FPGA design and verification

Ever since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, I have been fascinated by the possibilities of using AI…

Why security knowledge is now a must‑have for FPGA engineers

FPGAs no longer live inside closed, single‑purpose systems where the environments are tightly controlled and predictable…

How do we think bigger with smaller devices?

There’s an odd duality in modern FPGA design. We want them to do more. Yet at the same time, there are often competing demands for them to have a smaller footprint…

Industry news

From Pixels to Predictions: Edge AI Pipeline Acceleration with GStreamer for AMD Vitis™ AI

Deploying a neural network to edge hardware sounds straightforward, until you try it. You train a model in PyTorch, get great accuracy, and then face a wall of unfamiliar questions: How do you reduce precision without compromising accuracy? How do you target a specific adaptive SoC? How do you integrate inference seamlessly into real-time video pipelines with minimal development effort? Each of these steps can demand weeks of engineering effort on its own. AMD Vitis™ AI and the Vitis Video Analytics SDK (VVAS) are designed to close exactly those gaps.

Altera Expands DDR5 Memory Support Across Agilex FPGA Portfolio

Altera announced expanded DDR5 memory support across its Agilex® FPGA portfolio with the release of Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software version 26.1.1. The update adds new DDR5, LPDDR5 and LPDDR5X-compatible memory capabilities to more Agilex FPGAs, enabling developers to build higher-performance AI, networking and embedded systems with greater flexibility to optimize bandwidth, power, board space and component availability.

Microchip Advances Edge AI Sensor Connectivity with Rev 2.0 PolarFire® FPGA Ethernet Sensor Bridge

The shift toward compact, high‑performance edge AI systems is redefining sensor connectivity, pushing developers to deliver power‑ and space‑efficient architectures that remain secure, scalable and future‑ready. To address these challenges, Microchip has released Revision 2.0 of its PolarFire® FPGA Ethernet Sensor Bridge, a significantly smaller, production-ready board for standardized sensor integration leveraging NVIDIA Holoscan Sensor Bridge (HSB) technology.

AMD to Bring UCIe Connectivity to Select AMD Versal Adaptive SoCs

AMD will offer the first Versal™ adaptive SoCs with native support for Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express® (UCIe®) 1.1 interfaces, supporting low-power, high-bandwidth communication between co-packaged AMD adaptive SoCs and specialized chiplets.

Learning

PolarFire® FPGA Design Contest

In partnership with DigiKey, Microchip Technologies present the PolarFire FPGA Design Contest 2026 – a global platform for engineers, students, and innovators to turn their ideas into real hardware solutions.

Build at the intersection of AI acceleration, edge computing, robotics, and embedded intelligence using PolarFire FPGA platforms. Showcase your creativity, prove technical mastery and compete globally for prizes and recognition as you help shape the future of intelligent systems.

Turn your ideas into real-world solutions and compete for exciting prizes.

Advancing Multimodal Robotics at the Edge from Vision to Voice

By combining the power of Lattice’s flexible FPGA with ADI’s precision sensing solutions, developers can build intelligent edge infrastructure that connects sensor data to AI workloads while maintaining low latency, deterministic operation, and reduced system complexity. Explore their joint edge AI solutions for autonomous robotics in the detailed white papers within this blog.