The FPGA inside Analogue’s new consoles recreates the hardware of the 16-bit era
Image: Analogue
An old game cartridge does not know it has become a collector’s item. It still presents the electrical interface it was designed for, and it expects the machine on the other side to behave like the original console.
Analogue’s Super Nt+ and Mega Sg+ approach that problem with an Altera Cyclone V FPGA. The Super Nt+ plays Super Nintendo and Super Famicom cartridges; the Mega Sg+ targets Sega’s cartridge hardware. Both add modern connections while retaining the original media as the starting point.
The FPGA is what makes these more interesting than another retro-styled box. It allows a new chip to implement the digital behaviour of hardware whose original silicon is no longer being made for these products.
A circuit described in logic
A field-programmable gate array contains configurable logic, routing and resources such as memory blocks. Configuration data determines how those resources connect and behave. The resulting design can carry out many operations concurrently, rather than treating every operation as another instruction in one sequential program.
For a console recreation, that offers a way to implement the relationships between processing, graphics, audio and interfaces in hardware logic. Reproducing a machine is not simply a matter of reaching a sufficiently high instruction rate. Components can depend on when other parts of the system respond, including behaviour that a game’s developer took for granted.
An FPGA does not automatically make that recreation accurate. The implemented design still has to match the target’s behaviour and timing. Analogue’s claims of total accuracy and zero lag are its own product claims, not independent measurements in this article.
The company describes its approach as “no emulation”. The useful technical distinction is that it implements the console in configurable hardware rather than running a conventional software console emulator. Hardware recreation is still a model of the original machine; the phrase should not suggest that original Nintendo or Sega silicon is inside the enclosure.
Super Nt+ adds Bluetooth and 2.4GHz controller connectivity, USB-C power and HDMI video up to 1080p. Its USB-A port has a narrower role than its shape might suggest: Analogue specifies DAC support or controller charging, rather than general data transfer or direct use of wired USB controllers.
It also does not support the company’s openFPGA platform. This is a purpose-built console, not an unrestricted FPGA development system. Super Nt+ and Mega Sg+ are each listed at US$219.99, with pre-orders opening on 19 October and shipments planned for December.
Sources: Super Nt+: FPGA, interfaces and product conditions; Mega Sg+: FPGA and availability; Intel: FPGA architecture and configurable logic; Official press kit: Super Nt+ and Mega Sg+.
