Tools support latest FPGA release: News from Actel Europe

Note: A free brochure or catalogue is available from Actel Europe on the products in this news release. Click here to request a copy.

Actel has lined up comprehensive support for its new high-density, high-speed Axcelerator FPGA family. Actel now offers Actel Libero 2.2 integrated design environment, Actel Designer Series R1 2002 tool suite, Silicon Explorer II, Silicon Sculptor II and Axcelerator evaluation platform with integrated support for Axcelerator's advanced architectural features and unprecedented internal core performance. Support for Axcelerator is also being provided by leading EDA vendors Synplicity, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys for synthesis and simulation.

This extensive support offers designers greater ease-of-use and a method for reducing product design cycles and speeding time-to-market when designing next-generation, multi-million gate solutions.

For users of Axcelerator devices, the Actel Libero 2.2 design environment includes best-in-class tools from Actel, Innoveda, SynaptiCAD, Mentor Graphics and Synplicity.

Libero streamlines the design flow and enables schematic capture, stimulus and structural specification, import of structural design, test bench generation, simulation, synthesis, place and route, verification and real-time internal probing.

Libero also supports mixed-mode design entry input, which is especially valuable for designers integrating intellectual property (IP) into Axcelerator FPGA designs.

Integrated into the Libero environment or used as a stand-alone tool suite, Actel's enhanced Designer Series R1 2002 contains user-friendly productivity tools to accelerate and automate the system design process without forcing the designer to relinquish control.

With both automated and manual flows, Designer delivers automatic place and route, offers robust power analysis, allows hierarchical netlist viewing, provides support for fixed pins, creates customised macros and ensures accurate timing throughout the development cycle.

Actel Designer also works seamlessly with best-in-class synthesis, schematic and simulation tools from leading EDA vendors including Cadence, Innoveda, Mentor Graphics, Model Technology, SynaptiCAD, Synopsys and Synplicity.

Actel provides Silicon Explorer II, the company's verification and logic analysis tool, for real-time internal probing of Axcelerator devices.

The Silicon Explorer II software has been upgraded to deliver test and debug support for Axcelerator devices.

The combination of hardware and software diagnostics allows designers to decrease the time spent verifying circuit operation and accelerate the design debug process, thereby offering users a time-to-market advantage.

For optimised Axcelerator programming support, Actel offers its enhanced Silicon Sculptor II, a compact, single-device programmer.

Silicon Sculptor II provides self-test capability, offers backwards compatibility with Silicon Sculptor adapter modules, and includes universal socket adapters.

The standalone software for Silicon Sculptor II has also been upgraded to deliver programming support for Axcelerator devices.

A complete evaluation board enables designers to demonstrate and evaluate the feasibility of their Axcelerator-based designs.

The board includes an Axcelerator AX1000 or AX2000 test chip, a PowerQUICC II processor control subsystem, multiple standard I/O testing, single-ended and internal phase-locked loop (PLL) utilisation, 10/100 Ethernet MII and gigabit Ethernet GMII interfaces, and cable- and board-level low-voltage differential signal (LVDS) interconnect support.

Libero 2.2 and Designer R1 2002 with Axcelerator support are available now.

The complete Axcelerator evaluation platform, Silicon Explorer II and Silicon Sculptor II programmer are available for $2500, $1495 and $1850, respectively.

Request a free brochure from Actel Europe....

• Actel Europe: contact details and other news
• Email this news to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page