Altera Eases iappliance/embedded SOPC Design

By Bernard Cole
iApplianceWeb
(08/21/02, 06:59:30 PM EDT)

San Jose, Ca. -- Targeting developers of embedded and small footprint iappliance devices who want to get to market quickly with hardware customized for the specific application, Altera Inc. has introduced a new version of its SOPC Builder, Version 2.6.

The system-on-programmable chip (SOPC) toolkit allows even developers with little knowledge about field programmable logic design to move to market with designs based on its Excalibur family of high density fPGAs which incorporate in the fPGA the ability to incorporate customized versions of the 32 bit ARM922-T core or its own proprietary 16/32 bit Nios core.

With version 2.6, SOPC Builder allows developers to create custom designs that include an on-chip ARM922-T processor subsystem and AMBA High-Speed Bus (AHB) peripherals. SOPC Builder streamlines the process of integrating large blocks of intellectual property (IP) and accelerates development of complex system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) designs. Designers can use the tool to quickly combine system-level components such as embedded processors, memories, peripherals, and user created IP blocks to create their own custom SOPC.

For processor-based designs, SOPC Builder automatically generates custom software development environments for each ARM or Nios processor included in the system.

For more information on SOPC Builder, visit http://www.altera.com/sopcbuilder.