Xilinx ups Virtex support; ARC certifies design center

Xilinx ups Virtex support; ARC certifies design center
By Michael Santarini, EE Times
March 23, 1999 (9:49 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990322S0038

Xilinx Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) has announced the availability of multiple third-party software cores that support its Virtex family of FPGAs. Available now from partners in the Xilinx AllianceCore program, the cores include predefined networking, communications, encryption and microprocessor peripheral functions.

Cast Inc. (Pomona, N.Y.; www.cast-inc.com) is offering the C2910A microprogram controller, the C2901 bit-slice unit, the C_UART compact UART and the C8259A programmable interrupt controller for the Virtex family. In addition, Cast is offering a new cryptoprocessor core called the X-DES.

CoreEl MicroSystems (Fremont, Calif.; www.coreel.com) has weighed in with a new Utopia slave interface and a 10/100 Ethernet medium-access controller (MAC) core for Virtex. Integrated Silicon Systems (Belfast, Northern Ireland; www.iss -dsp.com) is supplying Reed-Solomon encoder and decoder cores. Memec Design Services (Mesa, Ariz.; www.memecdesign.com) also offers a Reed-Solomon encoder core, along with a new IIC master and slave interface. For its part, Virtual IP Group (Santa Clara, Calif.; www.virtualipgroup.com) is supplying the M8254 timer/counter and M8255 programmable peripheral interface cores.

Virtex is Xilinx' latest-generation FPGA family of high-performance, high-gate-count FPGAs. The nine devices range in density from 50,000 to 1 million system gates and provide chip-to-chip performance of 200 MHz.

According to Xilinx, AllianceCore partners report that cores previously designed for Xilinx XC4000 FPGA devices operate 25 to 30 percent faster when converted to run on Virtex devices. All of the new Virtex FPGA cores have been certified to ensure they work within the Xilinx software design flow, the company said.

T he Virtex family features four fully digital, delay-locked loops for internal and external clock synchronization; a hierarchy of memory access; and SelectI/O technology, for simultaneous interface to multiple voltage and signal standards.

Cores are available for purchase directly from the AllianceCore partners in either Xilinx-optimized net-list or source-code formats. Data sheets for each core can be found on the Xilinx Web site (www.xilinx.com).

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ARC Cores Inc. (London) has announced that third-party design-services provider White Eagle Systems Technology Inc. (San Jose) is now a certified ARC design center. According to the companies, White Eagle will provide integration and design support for ARC cores and customers. In addition, ARC will license its 32-bit customizable microprocessor core technology to White Eagle for use in that company's core offerings.

White Eagle plans to integrate the ARC technology with its own DSP-core tech nology for system-on-chip applications. White Eagle claims it has experience implementing ARC cores in multiple designs. Both companies believe the services agreement will allow a growing number of customers to integrate ARC cores quickly and effectively.