Product category: Programmable Logic Devices
News Release from: Xilinx | Subject: System Generator for DSP and AccelDSP
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 15 April 2008
DSP design tools make the most of FPGAs
Industry's first ESL design methodology to enable a direct FPGA implementation path for DSP algorithms described using imaginary and complex numbers.
Xilinx released version 10.1 of both its System Generator for DSP and AccelDSP synthesis tools, the development environment delivered by the Xilinx XtremeDSP solution With support for the new Virtex-5 FXT platform, the newest release delivers the industry's first ESL design methodology to enable a direct FPGA implementation path for DSP algorithms described using imaginary and complex numbers
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 18 Apr 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The tools also deliver improved support for interfacing to external video sources through the MicroBlaze embedded processor, as well as the first FPGA based hardware co-simulation for the Matlab modelling environment.
"Xilinx is committed to helping our customers minimise costs by providing devices and tools methodologies that enable them to implement their entire systems on a single platform FPGA such as the Virtex-5 FXT", says Tom Feist, Director of DSP Tools Development.
"These enhancements to our DSP development tools will help make it easier for customers to assemble designs that include logical, DSP and embedded components".
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The AccelDSP synthesis tool, Xilinx's groundbreaking high-level synthesis software, is now the first ESL design tool available that provides a direct FPGA implementation path for DSP algorithms described using imaginary and complex numbers.
Support of native complex numbers enables algorithm developers to target Xilinx FPGAs early in development with minimal source code modifications during prototyping, feasibility analysis and design exploration stages.
Complex arithmetic is used extensively in DSP algorithms for communications, defense and medical applications.
Unlike C, VHDL or Verilog, Matlab provides built-in support for the imaginary unit i or j, complex data types and complex arithmetic expressions using these datatypes.
This nomenclature can be used to describe complex algorithms with 75 to 85% fewer lines of code.
With version 10.1 of the System Generator for DSP tool, the XtremeDSP solution now includes improved support for interfacing to external video sources through the MicroBlaze embedded processor.
The Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) now also supports a new video frame buffer controller (VFBC) IP core that allows reading and writing of buffered video data in two-dimensional sets regardless of the size or organisation of the external memory transactions.
This VFBC is implemented as part of an embedded system that interfaces to external memories and video sources.
System Generator 10.1 software supports the generation of custom peripherals for Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS) to enable asynchronous clocking between the embedded and video processing subsystems.
This clocking scheme allows the video source and processing hardware to exist in separate clock domains typical of real world video applications.
Xilinx has introduced the industry's first FPGA-based hardware cosimulation for the Matlab modelling environment.
Developers of FPGA based DSP applications can now verify their designs running on Xilinx hardware platforms while leveraging all the signal generation and analysis capabilities of the Matlab simulation environment.
Computationally intensive algorithms, such as bit error rate (BER) testing of wireless transmissions, simulate up to 1000x faster using this verification methodology.
The XtremeDSP Solutions Tools Package can be purchased as an option to the ISE Design Suite for US $1495 (DO-DSP-PC) or as part of the XtremeDSP Development Kit - Virtex-5 FPGA DSP Edition (DO-V5-DSP-DK-SG-UNI-G) that also includes an ML506 hardware platform for US $1695.
System Generator for DSP and the AccelDSP synthesis tool continue to be available separately for US $895 and $995, respectively.
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