Altium to Demonstrate 32-Bit System Development on FPGAs at Embedded Systems Conference San Francisco.SYDNEY, Australia -- Altium Limited Altium or Altium Limited is Australian CAD/CAE software company, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX code: ALU). The company was founded in 1985 in Hobart, Tasmania, to fill a need in the electronics industry for easy to use, PC-based ECAD software. (ASX ASX See: Australian Stock Exchange :ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) The high-speed CPU circuit that does calculating and comparing. Numbers are transferred from memory into the ALU for calculation, and the results are sent back into memory. Alphanumeric data are sent from memory into the ALU for comparing. ), a leading developer of Windows-based electronics design software, today announced that it will demonstrate its approach to 32-bit system development on FPGAs at the Embedded Systems Embedded systems Computer systems that cannot be programmed by the user because they are preprogrammed for a specific task and are buried within the equipment they serve. Conference to be held on March 6 through March 10, 2005, in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , Calif. Altium's innovative approach enables engineers to build sophisticated embedded systems on FPGAs in less time and with increased efficiency. Altium will host a series of 30-minute workshops highlighting how Nexar, Altium's FPGA-based system design software, is moving embedded development on reprogrammable hardware into the mainstream. Nexar greatly simplifies the development of 32-bit systems targeted for FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) A type of gate array that is programmed in the field rather than in a semiconductor fab. Containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates, there are a variety of FPGA architectures on the market. implementation, and takes out the risk of migrating them to the 32-bit domain. The component-based design methodology coupled with interactive debugging of both hardware and software means little or no HDL/RTL expertise is required to build a system on an FPGA, opening up the benefits of FPGA-hosted embedded system Any electronic system that uses a CPU chip, but that is not a general-purpose workstation, desktop or laptop computer. Such systems generally use microprocessors, or they may use custom-designed chips or both. design to a much wider market than previously thought possible. "At the workshops, Altium will demonstrate the development of an MP3 player implemented on an FPGA with Nexar to show the enormous advantages of working in a reconfigurable hardware domain," said Nancy Eastman, director and president of Altium USA. "Participants will see first-hand how Altium's interactive LiveDesign methodology for the development of 32-bit systems on FPGAs allows engineers to realize significant benefits in terms of design time, and ease of system development and implementation." Altium will also showcase TSK tsk interj. Used to express disappointment or sympathy. n. A sucking noise made by suddenly releasing the tongue from the hard palate, used to express disappointment or sympathy. 3000, the new 32-bit FPGA-based RISC processor (refer to November 9, 2004, announcement.) "TSK3000 for Nexar has been specifically designed to minimize the complications and complexity usually associated with 32-bit system design," explained Eastman. "It includes full embedded software development support, with a highly-optimizing C compiler based on Altium's TASKING Viper compiler framework as well as a fully-integrated assembler, profiler and source-level debugger. This support coupled with Nexar's hardware design capabilities will truly demonstrate to workshop participants just how easy it is to build sophisticated embedded systems on FPGAs." TSK3000 is internally based on the Harvard architecture but features a simple memory structure and configurable hardware-based vectored interrupt handling to make coding simpler. Interfacing to the processor is also simplified by the provision of separate Wishbone wishbone see furcula. bus interfaces for connecting memories and peripherals. And as with all Nexar processors and FPGA-based components, TSK3000 is supplied pre-synthesized for a wide variety of FPGAs. This means the FPGA can be easily incorporated into a system design at the block level, eliminating the need to manually instantiate In object technology, to create an object of a specific class. See instance. instantiate - instantiation the core in HDL (Hardware Description Language) A language used to describe the functions of an electronic circuit for documentation, simulation or logic synthesis (or all three). Although many proprietary HDLs have been developed, Verilog and VHDL are the major standards. and greatly simplifying the processor's use in FPGA-based systems. The device-independent nature of the TSK3000 and the recent release of a number of new high-end daughter boards for the NanoBoard means system designers can use Nexar to take full advantage of the latest developments in FPGA device technology to rapidly develop and deploy high-performance 32-bit systems running within a programmable device. Key features of Nexar's 32-bit solution include: --5-stage pipelined RISC processor --Wishbone I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output and memory ports for simplified peripheral connection --Works with large set of supplied Wishbone peripherals --Full Nexar Viper-based software development toolchain - C compiler/assembler/source-level debugger/profiler --C code compatible with Nexar TSK51 and TSK80 8-bit processors for easy design migration --FPGA device-independent implementation --JTAG-based on-chip debug To correct a problem in hardware or software. Debugging software means locating the errors in the source code (the program logic). Debugging hardware means finding errors in the circuit design (logical circuits) or in the physical interconnections of the circuits. facilities compatible with Altium's LiveDesign development environment Altium Hands-On Workshops To pre-register for the free workshops, visit: www.altium.com/esc05 or call 866-764-4377.
Location: Booth 1016 Tues., 3/8 1:10 p.m.
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Location: Booth 1016 Wed., 3/9 10:10 a.m.
12:10 p.m.
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Location: Booth 1016 Thurs., 3/10 9:10 a.m.
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For more information on Nexar and the TSK3000 embedded tools, please visit Altium at Booth 1016 or www.altium.com. About Altium Limited Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) is a global developer and supplier of electronics design software for the Microsoft Windows environment. Founded in 1985, Altium released the world's first Microsoft Windows-based printed circuit board design tool in 1991 and continues to provide advanced, easy-to-use and affordable software design tools to electronics engineers, designers, and developers worldwide. Altium's products offer tailored solutions covering a range of hardware and software design processes including the Nexar, Protel, P-CAD and TASKING brands. Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia and has sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan, Europe and China. More information is available at www.altium.com. Altium, CAMtastic, CircuitStudio, Design Explorer, DXP DXP Design Explorer DXP Directory Exchange Protocol DXP Digital Extended Processor DXP Dynamic Xml Page , LiveDesign, NanoBoard, Nexar, nVisage, NanoTalk, P-CAD, Protel, Situs [Latin, Situation; location.] The place where a particular event occurs. For example, the situs of a crime is the place where it was committed; the situs of a trust is the location where the trustee performs his or her duties of managing the trust. , TASKING, and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed. |
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