S2C Announces 4th Generation Rapid SoC Prototyping Solution

Uses the New 40nm Altera Stratix IV FPGA to Achieve Up to 30 Million ASIC Gate Capacity

San Jose, Calif. – June 14, 2010 – S2C Inc., an advanced system-on-chip (SoC) design solutions provider, announces the release of its fourth-generation rapid SoC prototyping tool, S4 TAI Logic Module, based on Altera's 40-nm Stratix® IV field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA). 

Equipped with two Stratix IV EP4SE820 FPGAs, each featuring 820K logic elements (LEs), the Dual S4 TAI Logic Module supplies up to 30 million ASIC gates of capacity and provides 1,286 external I/O connections.  Multiple TAI Logic Modules can be stacked or mounted on a interconnect mother board to meet even larger gate count needs.

The S4 TAI Logic Module has many dramatic improvements over the third-generation version.  In addition to more than doubling the logic and memory capacity that can fit on single board, the new TAI Logic Module facilitates much higher system prototype performance and reliability through enhanced power management, cooling mechanisms and noise shielding. 

Jim Smith, Altera Corporation's director of professional services, training and boards, commented, "S2C's expertise in delivering proven hardware boards and automation software helps to greatly simplify the ASIC prototyping process. S2C's Stratix IV FPGA-based S4 TAI Logic Module provides ASIC designers access to the industry's highest density, highest performance FPGA, enabling them to decrease their ASIC prototyping development time and reduce the risk of costly respins.”

The S4 TAI Logic Modules can run both 2GB of DDR2 and 2GB of DDR3 memory at up to 667MHz.  S2C offers a large library of off-the-shelf daughter modules, such as SRAM, DVI, PCIe and Gigabit Ethernet, to further accelerate customers' construction of FPGA prototypes for their applications

“In addition to providing the highest performance and capacity standard prototyping hardware, S2C ensures that our users have an easy-to-use and time-saving prototyping experience by providing compatible software.  Our TAI Player Pro software version 3.2 has been upgraded to fully support the Stratix IV FPGA, giving designers greater control over the prototype flow process, from multi-FPGA synthesis, partitioning and RTL-level probing to FPGA place-and-route," noted Mon-Ren Chene, Chairman and CTO of S2C.  “Once designs are compiled, S2C’s TAI Player software allows users to rapidly download them to the FPGAs, generate programmable clocks, and self-test hardware straightforwardly via a USB2.0 connection.  Our goal has always been to allow our customers to focus on designing and verifying their SoC chips rather than on building or debugging FPGA prototypes.”

S4 TAI Logic Module is now shipping with either a Stratix IV EP4SE820 or EP4SE530 FPGA version. The S4 TAI Logic Module can mount either one or two FPGA devices per module.  All S4 TAI Logic Modules adopt a similar forum factor to all previous TAI Logic Module generations, so existing customers can easily upgrade and re-use their current daughter cards or mother boards.  

About S2C

Founded and headquartered in San Jose, California, S2C has been successfully delivering rapid SoC prototyping tools since 2003.  S2C provides:

• Rapid SoC FPGA-based prototyping hardware systems plus design and verification software.
• Third-party Prototype Ready IP™
• SoC design, prototype and production services

S2C’s value proposition is our highly qualified engineering team and customer-focused sales force that understands our customers’ commercial SoC development needs.  S2C’s unique FPGA-based electronic system level (ESL) solution, using our patented TAI IP technology, enables designers to quickly assemble FPGA-based SoC prototypes on S2C FPGA boards easily and securely.  This enables customers to start software development, typically the long pole item in development schedules, immediately.  Combining rapid prototyping methodologies with a comprehensive portfolio of Prototype Ready IP and advanced design solutions, S2C can reduce the SoC design cycle by up to nine months. 

S2C currently has 3 direct offices located in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen to meet the demand for accelerated SoC design activities in China. S2C is also the organizer of the annual SoCIP seminar and exhibition in China, which brings SoC designers/professionals from the Asia-Pacific region together with international silicon IP and SoC solution vendors. For more information, visit www.s2cinc.com.