Increase Performance in Imaging Applications by Integrating DSP Functions With FPGAs

Intevac is a leading developer of photonics products for commercial and military markets. This white paper describes the development of the embedded electronic systems for their NightVista product, a compact, high-performance, ultra low-light camera. The initial implementation of this camera was based on a popular digital signal processor, several ASSPs, and external memory devices. The requirement to increase system performance led the engineering team to explore an alternative based on a configurable soft-core processor implemented in programmable logic.