C-based design covers latest FPGAs

The second major release of the CoDeveloper C-to-FPGA design tool adds significant new capabilities and improved quality-of-results for the latest FPGA devices.

Impulse Accelerated Technologies has announced the second major release of its CoDeveloper C-to-FPGA design tool.

The new release adds significant new capabilities and improved quality-of-results for the latest FPGA devices.

New features include: redesigned Application Manager and Application Monitor interfaces; VHDL and Verilog compiler output options; enhanced instruction scheduling and loop pipelining; improved support for fixed-width integers and fixed-point math operations; support for module generation through the use of named ports; improved optimiser reports, including pipeline effective rate estimates; and many new examples and tutorials.

Support for embedded processor interfaces has also improved in Version 2, including support for the latest processors from Altera and Xilinx.

The Impulse C libraries included with CoDeveloper Version 2 support multiple programming models including streams, signals and shared memories, allowing a software programmer to make use of available FPGA resources for hardware coprocessing without the need to write low-level hardware descriptions.

The compiler tools included with CoDeveloper Version 2 provide the necessary C-to-hardware compilation path, as well as providing automated generation of software/hardware interfaces that are specifically optimised for FPGA-based processor platforms.

This capability makes it possible for an application developer to create a complete hardware/software application with no need to write VHDL or Verilog code.

Instead, the CoDeveloper tools create the necessary low-level hardware and software descriptions (in the form of HDL outputs and automatically-generated software libraries) which can then be imported directly into existing FPGA tools (including tools from Xilinx, Altera and Synplicity) for hardware synthesis and implementation.

By allowing software application developers to create FPGA-based prototypes and end products, CoDeveloper Version 2 promises to dramatically improve development productivity and design innovation.

CoDeveloper gives developers the freedom to try new and different ways of implementing mixed software/hardware applications, without the hardware design lead-times that would otherwise be required.

"One of the key benefits we offer embedded systems programmers and FPGA designers is the ability to experiment", states David Pellerin, Chief Technology Officer of Impulse.

"Our target customers include software developers who may not be familiar with low-level FPGA design techniques and tools, and who are unwilling to invest the amount of time needed to craft hardware solutions using existing methods".

"With CoDeveloper Version 2, we have extended the capabilities of our tools to serve the growing need for powerful yet accessible software-to hardware solutions".

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