Technology
A device that measures its own timing.
A lightweight health layer alongside your design measures setup slack on every LUT and carry chain, at operating frequency, in production, and keeps every device inside its measured margin.
Built for FPGAs
Four parts, one health layer.
Today a chip is characterized once, at the factory, and run for life against the worst chip that could have been made. Monitoring built into an ASIC has to be there at tape-out. FPGAs are programmable, so a health layer can be added beside a design already in your racks: no new silicon, no RTL changes, and a measurement that continues for the life of the card.
Timing Health Monitoring
Per-element timing measured at speed, on the chip, while your design runs.
Learn moreIntegration & Deployment
A small reserved region beside your design, through the vendor's own flow, deployed on your site.
Learn moreCharacterization Applications
Every card measured before service and on the way out.
Learn moreIn-Field Applications
Monitor, model, tune and, when needed, repair, for the life of every card.
Learn moreTiming Health Monitoring
On-chip measurement, in production, for the life of the card.
The health layer measures timing slack on individual logic elements: LUTs, carry blocks and the links between them. A full sweep takes about a second; each link is resolved to under 20 ps.
What it measures
- Per-element slack. Measured slack as a share of the clock period, per logic-element link, on every card.
- Variation. Random, systematic and spatial variation shown separately, so a weak region has an address.
- Aging. Each element tracked for the life of the card, fitted to its own temperature history.
- Operating point. Voltage and frequency alongside timing, so a change can be checked against its effect.
LUTs
Carry blocks
Interconnect links
Temperature history
- Last sweep
- 2 min ago, 1.0 s
- Aging model
- Power-law fit to this card's temperature history
- Recommended action
- Schedule a repair window
- Approval
- Waiting for your change process
Monitoring infrastructure
Under 1% of LUTs and under 5% of flip-flops on a production shell, under 2% delay impact, no downtime, no JTAG exposure. The platform runs on your site.
Integration & Deployment
Built for designs already in production.
Integration asks one thing of your build: a small region reserved beside your design, sized and placed with your team during evaluation. Your RTL is not changed. Telemetry stays in your network.
Reserve
A small region of the device is reserved for the health layer: under 1% of LUTs and under 5% of flip-flops on a production shell.
How much, and where, is planned with your team during evaluation. This is the one thing integration asks of your build; your logic, routing and I/O are not touched.
Integrate
The health layer is added beside a design that is already in production, through the vendor's own flow: AMD Vivado for AMD parts, Altera Quartus for Altera parts.
No RTL changes, no new silicon, no JTAG exposure, and under 2% delay impact on your design.
Deploy
The platform runs on your site. Telemetry leaves each card in one vendor-neutral schema and lands in your existing monitoring; nothing leaves your network.
Read-only is the default. Voltage scaling, frequency scaling and repair are enabled separately, by policy; every action is scheduled and handshake-gated.
| Card | Family | Weakest element | Time to threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A3-07 | Virtex UltraScale+ | 8.2% | 1.4 yrs | Action |
| B1-12 | Agilex 7 | 11.9% | 2.8 yrs | Watch |
| C4-02 | UltraScale | 12.6% | 3.1 yrs | Watch |
Characterization Applications
Every card measured before service, and on the way out.
The same measurement continues in production, so the margin you sign off is the margin you keep.
Incoming
Every LUT and carry block measured at speed on arrival, about a second per card, in staging.
A per-card timing and variation report, read-only. Tail cards are known on day one.
Weak-resource maps
Measured slack mapped across the chip's logic elements, with random, systematic and spatial variation shown separately.
The map guides your next place-and-route, so critical paths avoid weak regions, and is re-measured for the life of the card. Your current build is not touched.
Exit
Cards leaving service are measured the same way, so the exit report compares directly with the incoming one.
Evidence for warranty, vendor feedback, and resale, reuse or retirement decisions.
The model behind the forecast
Each card's aging curve is fitted to its measured history and temperature, then projected to the alert threshold you set. Every sweep refines the fit.
In-Field Applications
Monitor, model, tune and, when needed, repair.
Monitoring feeds the aging model and the tuning; both feed back into monitoring, so every change is re-measured. Repair is the exception, not the routine: nothing in your design moves unless an element is degrading toward your threshold.
Monitor
Every logic element swept in about a second while the design runs. One metric on every vendor: measured slack as a share of the clock period.
| Site | Element | Slack | Time to threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| X84Y212 | C6LUT | 8.2% | 1.4 yrs | Action |
| X85Y212 | Carry | 9.6% | 2.2 yrs | Watch |
| X40Y96 | B5LUT | 11.9% | 2.8 yrs | Watch |
Model
An aging curve per card and per element, fitted to the card's own temperature history, with a predicted time-to-threshold. Outliers are flagged early.
Tune
Voltage and frequency held within the margin each device has measured, in windows you schedule, coordinated per device, per board or fleet-wide. Every change is re-measured.
- Last sweep
- 2 min ago, 1.0 s
- Aging model
- Power-law fit to this card's temperature history
- Recommended action
- Lower operating point to 0.83 V in the next window
- Approval
- Waiting for your approval; re-measured after the change
Repair
Nothing in your design moves until an element degrades toward your threshold. Then only that path is moved to a healthy resource, through your change process, and the card is re-measured within a second.
At the edge
Satellites, aircraft, radar and remote ground stations cannot wait for a fleet server. The health layer measures on the platform, projects a time-to-threshold per board, and scales voltage within the margin each device has measured.
| Board | Platform | Enclosure temp. | Time to threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RF-11 | Airborne radar | 68 °C | 3.9 yrs | Watch |
| RF-04 | Ground station | 41 °C | 9.8 yrs | Nominal |
Solutions
Solutions for the entire lifecycle.
FAQ
Common questions.
Sensor architecture, deployment mechanics and calibration methods are shared with evaluation partners under NDA.
What does the health layer measure?
Timing slack on individual logic elements, including LUTs, carry blocks and the links between them, at operating speed. A full sweep of every element takes about a second, with each link resolved to under 20 ps.
Does it change our design?
Your RTL is not changed. The health layer occupies a small region reserved beside your design, sized and placed with your team during evaluation. Your logic, routing and I/O stay as built. Repair, if you enable it, moves only a path whose element is degrading; everything else stays put.
What does it cost in resources?
Under 1% of LUTs and under 5% of flip-flops on a production shell, with under 2% delay impact.
Which devices and toolchains?
AMD 7-series, UltraScale and UltraScale+ today, with select Altera Agilex 7 devices. Integration with each vendor's toolchain, including AMD Vivado and Altera Quartus, is handled by Fluid Silicon.
Does it cover the whole lifecycle?
Yes. Characterization at incoming, continuous monitoring in production, and characterization again at exit. Tuning and repair are opt-in steps in between.
How is it different from monitoring built into an ASIC?
Monitoring designed into an ASIC has to be there at tape-out. FPGAs are programmable, so the health layer is added beside a design already in your racks, with no new silicon and no RTL changes. FPGAs are where we start; the same approach extends to other reconfigurable and programmable silicon.
Is it secure?
The platform runs on your site. No JTAG port has to be exposed, nothing is written into your design's logic, telemetry stays in your network in one schema you control, and every action is opt-in, scheduled and handshake-gated. See security and integration.
How does the sensing work?
Sensor architecture, deployment mechanics and calibration methods are shared with evaluation partners under NDA. Ask for a technical session.
Measure a device at speed, live.
A 30-minute session: in-system slack measurements on a supported AMD or Altera device, and what an evaluation on your boards involves.