Design environment supports crossover PLDs

Altium Designer has been enhanced to include full support for Lattice's MachXO family of crossover programmable logic devices (PLDs).

Altium Designer has been enhanced to include full support for Lattice's MachXO family of crossover programmable logic devices (PLDs).

This move allows engineers to rapidly construct application hardware targeted to the popular, low cost, highly capable MachXO devices using the full power of Altium Designer's unified design environment.

The addition of the Lattice MachXO family extends the range of Lattice devices already included with Altium Designer and joins an ever increasing array of devices supported by the system, reinforcing Altium's commitment to offering FPGA device- and vendor-independent solutions.

This means designers can make use of an extensive range of devices using the same programmable design platform, eliminating the need to purchase additional software or specific device support modules.

This also gives designers the freedom to make implementation decisions, such as final device selection, much later in the design cycle when design requirements are more fully understood.

"The unique MachXO architecture combines the fast programmability of SRAM-based FPGA technology with the security of integrated flash configuration to offer a level of performance beyond the capabilities of traditional CPLDs, with the flexibility of an FPGA", stated Tim Schnettler, Lattice Director Design Tools Marketing.

"Altium Designer's unified architecture combined with the unique features of MachXO opens up exciting possibilities for our customers, such as additional design flexibility and faster time to market".

Altium Designer is the first design system to bring together hardware, software and programmable hardware design within a single, unified environment.

It includes an extensive set of ready-to-use "soft" components that can be used to target a wide range of programmable devices, including the MachXO.

Developers can even implement small processors, such as Altium Designer's TSK165 soft-core RISC processor, within MachXO devices.

Altium Designer also includes a range of "virtual instruments" that can be added to circuitry at the schematic level and implemented inside the target device on a suitable development board.

These instruments connect to soft front panels within the system to allow an interactive approach to be taken to programmable logic design, minimising the need for extensive and time-consuming HDL simulation.

"MachXO bridges the gap between CPLDs and FPGAs, making them extremely useful devices", says Nick Martin, founder and CEO of Altium.

"The versatility of these devices complements the unified nature of the Altium Designer environment and the introduction of support for the MachXO family brings even greater flexibility to engineers developing systems with Altium Designer".

Support for the Lattice MachXO family of crossover programmable logic devices (PLDs) is now available in the latest version of Altium Designer - Altium Designer 6.5.

Altium Designer 6.5 is available for purchase through Altium's sales and support centres worldwide.

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