Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Hardi Electronics | Subject: HAPS-31 and HAPS-32
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 07 March 2006
Prototyping is cost-effective for
smaller ASICs
Two new series of third-generation motherboards bring the performance of the Hardi ASIC Prototyping System (HAPS) for multi-million-gate ASICs to smaller designs.
Hardi Electronics has released two new series of third-generation motherboards that bring the performance of the Hardi ASIC Prototyping System (HAPS) for multi-million-gate ASICs to smaller designs Based on the Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs, both HAPS-31 and HAPS-32 help ASIC designers to verify their designs quickly and accurately by leveraging the best-in-class I/O connectivity and flexibility
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 10 Mar 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Real-time platform for real ASIC prototypes
Available now, Version 2.1 of the Hardi ASIC prototyping system (HAPS) provides real-time speed, real-time debugging and full ASIC functionality for ASIC prototyping designers.
FPGA board prototypes up to a million ASIC gates
The HAPS FPGA-2x3 is a single-FPGA prototyping board that can be used by itself for up to a million ASIC gates running up to 200MHz or as an addon to HAPS multi-FPGA boards if more capacity is needed.
The new ground-breaking boards bring high performance and extreme flexibility to a wide range of design sizes from 300,000 ASIC gates up to more than 30 million gates.
No other system on the market has the capacity range of HAPS.
With the addition of HAPS-31 and HAPS-32 to the HAPS family, customers can use the same high-performance building block technology beginning with a small design and grow the prototype size when needed.
Further reading
More scope for ASIC prototyping system
Three new daughterboards add capabilities such as Ethernet, USB and analogue video to the HAPS modular ASIC prototyping system.
Prototyping system hits PCI and PCI-X buses
A new daughterboard provides PCI/PCI-X connectivity to the Hardi Electronics HAPS prototyping system.
Prototyping board offers multigigabit serial links
A new daughterboard in the HAPS family will give customers access to multigigabit serial links and embedded PowerPC processors.
It is also very cost effective to be able to use several HAPS-31 or HAPS-32 in different, smaller projects and then put them all together when a larger design needs to be prototyped.
The new motherboards are part of the HapsTrak connection system which provides more than 900 I/Os per FPGA for user configuration.
This is far more than any other system on the market.
The I/Os can be used for FPGA-interconnect or for adding external devices such as memory, communication, video or data acquisition.
"The HAPS-31 and HAPS-32 expand our third generation HAPS motherboards to give our customers more options", said Lars-Eric Lundgren, Hardi CEO.
"Now it's easy to quickly prototype the ASIC with exactly the right capacity and functionality".
"If more FPGAs are needed as the design evolves, they can easily be added by using HapsTrak to connect more boards".
"You can actually add one FPGA at the time if you like".
"Stacking a number of HAPS-31 boards on top of each other makes a very compact and high performance system".
"No other system has that level of flexibility".
"ASIC prototyping with HAPS has no limits".
The HAPS-32 motherboard series contains two of the largest Virtex-4 FPGAs (LX100, 160 or 200) and is ideal for prototyping 1.5-3 million ASIC gates.
The HAPS-31 motherboard series contains one Virtex-4 FPGA (LX40, 60, 80, 100, 160 or SX55) and is optimum for 300,000 to 1.1 million ASIC gates.
When using the SX55, HAPS-31 is aimed at DSP applications.
The new motherboards, together with the HAPS-34 which contains four Virtex 4 FPGAs, provide Hardi customers with optimised prototyping hardware for designs ranging from 300,000 to 6 million ASIC gates per board.
Like all HAPS products, they can be combined together like building blocks for additional capacity and functionality.
Virtually any design size can be achieved.
"I'm proud to announce that our engineering team has met all our design goals and created the most versatile high-speed platform available", stated Jonas Nilsson, Hardi Technical Manager.
"One important detail is our new high-speed clock synchronisation mechanism".
"It allows designers to stack the new HAPS-31 or HAPS-32 on top of HAPS-34 with zero impact on performance".
"It's just like having more FPGAs placed on the same circuit board".
"We have achieved datarates of over 800Mbit/s between FPGAs on different boards, so our system is not the limiting factor for high speed ASIC prototypes".
HAPS addresses critical issues regarding prototyping board design such as cross talk, impedance and length matching, clock distribution, connectivity problems, gate capacity and system speed.
The HAPS-3X has multiple, configurable voltage regions, and BIST (built-in self test) that checks all functions.
The HapsTrak Standard guarantees compatibility with previous and future generations of HAPS motherboards and daughterboards, including user-developed daughterboards.
HAPS-31 and HAPS-32 are available immediately with pricing starting at US $8900.
• Hardi Electronics: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
