Concept Engineering Simplifies Actel's FPGA Design Process; Actel Adds Concept Engineering's Schematic Viewing Widget to Designer Series Software.Business Editors, Technology Writers FREIBURG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2000 Concept Engineering, the industry leader in schematic generation and viewing technology, announced that Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL ACTL American College of Trial Lawyers (Irvine, California) ACTL Access Carrier Terminal Location ACTL Activation Library ACTL Automated Compatibility Test Laboratory ACTL Association Cultural Turkey-Luxembourg ) has integrated Concept's NLviewMFC Widget Pronounced "wih-jit," for decades, the term has been a popular word for a generic "thing" when there is no real name for it. It is often used to describe examples of made-up products along with other fictitious names; for example, "10 widgets, 5 frabbits and 2 dingits. into their Designer Series Software. The NLviewMFC Widget simplifies the 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. design process by transforming complex hardware structures and engineering data into easy-to-read schematic diagrams. "The Designer Series FPGA development tools are provided to our customers to optimize their productivity and maximize FPGA performance," said Ken Joyner, Actel's director of software engineering. "Adding NLviewMFC Widget helps on both fronts. It improves designers' productivity by allowing them to easily understand the impact of their 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. or resulting netlist. It then helps them make design decisions that boost the performance of their Actel FPGAs." "The incorporation of our Viewing Widget into the Actel Design Series Software represents yet another step in market acceptance of our technology," said Gerhard Angst, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Concept Engineering. "Thousands of Actel customers will now use our technology to easily understand and 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. their designs. This further demonstrates that we are continuing to set the industry standard for schematic generation and schematic viewing." The NLviewMFC Widget is a powerful schematic debugging environment that provides valuable insight into the most complex circuit designs. It simplifies design debugging and analysis, and provides automatic design documentation. Actel's integration of Concept's NLviewMFC Widget into the Actel Designer Series FPGA development tools gives FPGA designers the ability to generate and view schematic diagrams. The integration also enables FGPA designers to back-annotate timing data from Actel's delay calculation engine into the created schematics, for easier and faster debugging. Pricing and Availability The NLviewMFC Widget will be included in the Designer Series FPGA development tools, which Actel currently expects to release in 3Q2000. About Concept Engineering Concept Engineering is a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. based in Freiburg, Germany. It was founded in 1990 to develop and market innovative schematic generation and viewing technology for use with logic synthesis The conversion of a high-level electronic circuit description into a list of logic gates and their interconnections, called the "netlist." Every logic synthesis program understands some subset of Verilog and VHDL. , verification, test automation and physical design tools. The company's customers are primarily original equipment EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. tool manufacturers (OEMs), in-house CAD tool developers and semiconductor companies. The company is located at Botzinger Str. 29, D-79111 Freiburg, Germany. Telephone: +49-761-47094-0, Fax: +49-761-47094-29. For more information, see www.concept.de About Actel Actel designs, develops, and markets FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) and associated design and development software and programming hardware. Designers of communications, computer, consumer/e-Appliance, industrial, military/aerospace, and other electronic systems to differentiate their products and get them to market faster use FPGAs. Actel is the leading supplier of FPGAs based on antifuse technology and has introduced the ProASIC family of reprogrammable FPGAs based on flash technology. The company also offers system-level design, prototyping, and consulting services through its Protocol Design Services Group. Actel's strategy is to be The Programmable ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. Solutions Company, a complete solution provider for programmable ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) systems. The company is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is located at 955 East Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, California, 94086-4533. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (888-992-2835). Internet: http://www.actel.com. |
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