Cosimulation speeds FPGA design

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Apr 4, 2003

The Dime-II scalable reconfigurable computing platform now offers full cosimulation support for the new System Generator 3.1 software platform from Xilinx.

The Dime-II scalable reconfigurable computing platform now offers full cosimulation support for the new System Generator 3.1 software platform from Xilinx, with simulation times for high speed DSP design being slashed from months to minutes.

Nallatech, a Xilinx Diamond Xpert, has also been selected by Xilinx to provide a series of development kits including the recently launched Xilinx XtremeDSP kit.

David Squires, Director of the DSP Centre of Excellence, Xilinx, said, "The modular Dime-II platform from Nallatech used in the Xilinx XtremeDSP kit is a great compliment to System Generator, a key part of the Xtreme DSP solution from Xilinx for implementing high-performance DSP systems using FPGAs.

The combination of Nallatech's scalable reconfigurable computing platform and the hardware in the loop capabilities of System Generator allows systems architects to slash simulation times from months to minutes".

Full cosimulation support is now available for the Strathnuey, Ballynuey2, Ballynuey3, BenEra and BenNuey motherboards as well as the Strathnuey starter kit and the Xtreme DSP kit.

In addition, support is provided for the user programmable FPGA on the carrier cards themselves and enhanced support for cosimulation in multiple FPGA Dime-based systems is also available.

"Our hardware in the loop (HWIL) team have been very impressed with the HWIL capabilities of the System Generator for DSP tool and it will be very useful to us in developing reconfigurable computing for next generation HWIL systems", said Dr Malachy Devlin, CTO, Nallatech, " It also gives designers greater access to a more familiar DSP design environment, more akin to conventional DSP processor design flows".