Development of FPGA-based Programmable Timing Controller

The overall size of electronic product is becoming small according to development of technology. Accordingly it is difficult to inspect these small components by human eyes. So, an automation system for inspecting them has been used. The existing system put microprocessor or Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) use. The structure of microprocessor-based controller and PLC use basically composed of memory devices such as ROM, RAM and I/O ports. Accordingly, the system is not only becomes complicated and enlarged but also higher price. In this paper, we implement FPGA-based One-chip Programmable Timing Controller for Inspecting Small components to resolve above problems and design the high performance controller by using VHDL. With fast development, the FPGA of high capacity that can have memory and PLL have been introduced. By using the high-capacity FPGA, the peripherals of the existent controller, such as memory, I/O ports can be implemented in one FPGA. By doing this, because the complicated system can be simplified, the noise and power dissipation problems can be minimized and it can have the advantage in price. Since the proposed controller is organized to have internal register, counter, and software routines for generating timing signals, users do not have to problem the details about timing signals and need to only send some values about an inspection system through an RS232C port. By selecting theses values appropriate for a given inspection system, desired timing signals can be generated.