Title
DECT Tester
FPGA technology for the realisation of low cost and reliable chipset for INTEL MCS-51 family applications in DECT telecoms
Technologies used

FPGA, SMT

Industrial sector (PRODCOM code)
    322 Telegraph and Telephone Apparatus and Equipment and Radio and Electronic Capital Goods
Abstract
ELISYS Srl is an Italian SME established in 1987. It currently employs 10 people and produces and sells a wide range of test equipment for industrial lines of telecom equipment serving primarily Italian companies located in the Southeast of the country.
The Company's area of expertise and market focus lie in specialised test equipment for telecom equipment and industrial automation. Its products are mainly realised with microcontroller-based PCBs and in particular the company acquired widespread experience in the application of the MCS-51 INTEL microcontroller family. The Company also uses a proprietary real time SW multitasking operative system tailored for typical telecommunication Test Equipment application.
The objective of this Application Experiment was to achieve a significant product enhancement through the incorporation of an FPGA-based board - named DECT TESTER - to the existing product DGT16, a tester of equipment for DECT, Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication.
The FPGA-based board incorporates most of the ancillary blocks needed to design an 80C5a-based board The FPGA is meant to allow cost reduction (components, assembly, test), enhance product reliability and simplify the bill of materials - and associated logistic efforts - for producing the DGT16 system.
The new board is built around an ALTERA FLEX 10K20 chip with 20,000 typical gates. The FPGA replaces a 256 bytes RAM, one I2C-bus Controller, 4 x 8 bits digital I/O PORTs (FIFOs) and one Programmable Timer. 30% of gates are still unused so further improvements/feature extensions are not limited by gate availability in the FPGA.
The new DECT TESTER board is also meant to be marketed as a macro element to any third party interested in doing developments for the 80C51 family. It can be used as a standard 80C31 microprocessor chipset in order to help the engineers to solve the many interfacing problems encountered when designing digital control circuits in Telecommunications. This chip usage makes possible to increase the system performance, by relieving the microprocessor from the management of some data structures and some internal resources.
The AE started on 1 June 1998 and ended on 30 November 1998. It was carried out in 6 months with a Company's overall effort of 142 persondays and a total cost of 42.38 KEURO. A subcontractor got 11.5 KEURO for transferring technology. The estimated payback period is 19 months, based on a better profit margin (about +30%) and foreseen bigger sale volumes (over 100% increase). ROI for the investment made for prototypes is estimated in 210.5%.
The whole investment, including 15 KEURO for industrialisation and 8 KEURO for specific product reengineering will be recovered in 22 months with an anticipated ROI of 155.5%.

ELISYS is now able to manage an FPGA development on its own and is eager to do so in the future. The Company has already incorporated the FPGA board in additional lines of products - like the telephone simulator (ST1) and the Exchange simulator (SC1) and on a data logger - which are part of the major business line of the Company.
This AE could be of interest of every company involved in Telecom and Industrial Automation.
Company
ELISYS S.r.l.
Via Appia,
259 Casagiove (CE)
Italy
Detailed information
You can also benefit from microelectronics

FPGA, SMT technology provided ELISYS S.r.l. with the means of improving its products and enhancing its market position. You can also achieve significant benefits by acquiring the right microelectronics technology and utilising it in your product or manufacturing process. You can get help from FUSE to realise this.

FUSE is a technology transfer programme, funded by the European Commission to stimulate the wider use of microelectronics technologies by European enterprises to increase their competitiveness and enhance their economic growth. The demonstrator described here is one of many examples in the public FUSE portfolio covering the whole spectrum of microelectronics technologies and spanning a wide range of applications and industry sectors.

FUSE provides you with:

  • Best practice in acquiring specific microelectronics technologies and conducting full development projects through the FUSE portfolio of real life demonstrator documents.
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