FPGA support provides productivity boost

The Virtex-5 FXT platform comes with up to two PowerPC 440 processor blocks, a DSP and high-speed serial capabilities to deliver a comprehensive system integration platform

Synplicity's Synplify Pro FPGA synthesis solution now supports Virtex-5 FXT field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) from Xilinx.

In addition, Synplicity has created an automated solution for integrating its Synplify Pro FPGA synthesis solution into the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) so designers can achieve maximum productivity and quality of results for their embedded system designs.

"Our ongoing relationship with Synplicity results in solutions that maximise the capabilities of ultra high-density designs implemented in Xilinx 65nm Virtex-5 FPGAs", said Steve Lass, Senior Director Software Marketing at Xilinx.

The Virtex-5 FXT platform comes with up to two PowerPC 440 processor blocks, a DSP and high-speed serial capabilities to deliver a comprehensive system integration platform for high-performance applications such as audio/video broadcast, communications, military, aerospace and many others.

One of the key reasons software customers targeting Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs get optimal timing and area results using the Synplify Pro tool is because the synthesis algorithms in the product have been developed to take advantage of the six-input look up tables (LUTs) that characterise the Virtex-5 family.

Existing synthesis technology, based upon four-input LUT architectures, will not be able to deliver optimal results when targeting Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs.

"By combining two IBM PowerPC 440 embedded processors with over 190 GMACs of DSP processing horsepower in a single device, Xilinx has created an impressive system-integration platform with the Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs", said Jeff Garrison, Senior Director of Marketing, FPGA Implementation at Synplicity.

"The Synplify Pro software, already tightly integrated into the Xilinx ISE and XtremeDSP Development Tools environments, now supports the entire system design flow by supporting the Xilinx embedded development tool, Platform Studio, using a new script-based flow".

"This flow makes it easy for system designers, with limited FPGA design experience, to achieve optimum results using Synplify Pro".

Current Synplify Pro software customers on active maintenance will receive support for the new Virtex-5 FXT devices at no extra charge.

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