Actel offers a low-cost evaluation board for the company's flash-based ProASICPLUS field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The new evaluation board, developed in conjunction with First Silicon Solutions (FS2), allows designers to access the in-system programmability (ISP) feature of Actel's nonvolatile ProASICPLUS devices as well as to explore various chip characteristics, such as I/O drive characteristics, boundary scan operation, embedded RAM block performance and phase-locked loop (PLL) operation. With this platform, designers can quickly and accurately evaluate their own designs to determine suitability for their application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) alternative applications in the industrial, communications, networking and avionics markets.
"Since its launch in January 2002, we have seen unprecedented success with our ProASICPLUS offerings due to its single-chip, ASIC-like architecture; the inherent security benefits of Actel's flash-based FPGAs; and the ISP capability that enables reprogramming of the devices in the field," said Bryon Moyer, senior director of tools and technical marketing at Actel. "The Actel Libero integrated design environment and Actel Designer software combined with the portable Flash Pro programmer and the new low-cost evaluation board developed with FS2 provide our customers complete support when using Actel's ProASICPLUS family of FPGAs in their communications, industrial and avionics designs."
"We were happy to work closely with Actel to develop the new low-cost evaluation board for ProASICPLUS FPGAs," said Rick Leatherman, president of First Silicon Solutions. "When used with the Flash Pro programmer, customers have an easy way to evaluate Actel's flash-based FPGA technology."
To enable the user to evaluate any ProASICPLUS device, Actel offers a BG456 prototyping socket as part of the evaluation board. Other features include a Zilog eZ80 microcontroller, 2 MB flash RAM, 2 MB SRAM, and an integrated UART. Prototyping headers enable the user to add external components when creating a system that is similar to the user's final product. A standard programming header is also included, allowing the user to program the ProASICPLUS device with either the Flash Pro or Silicon Sculptor programmer from Actel.
For more information contact Kobus van Rooyen, ASIC Design Services, 011 315 8316, [email protected]
| Tel: | +27 11 315 8316 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.asic.co.za |
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