Design & Reuse

Actel Continues to Ease Embedded Design with Extensive Library of IP

Actel's IP Library Includes Support for the New SmartFusion Intelligent Mixed Signal FPGA

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 11, 2010 — Actel Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTL) today announced that embedded designers can now take advantage of a broad portfolio of Actel intellectual property (IP) cores available for SmartFusion™ intelligent mixed signal FPGAs. SmartFusion mixed signal FPGAs are the only device that combines an FPGA, ARM® Cortex™-M3 processor and programmable analog on a single chip. In addition to the multiple peripherals hard coded into the device, Actel enables full customization by offering an extensive library of soft peripherals that can be placed in the low power flash FPGA fabric.

Actel's IP cores enable customers to easily incorporate robust functionality, take complete advantage of the newly introduced SmartFusion devices and build a solution that meets the exact needs of their design.

A large library of Actel IP cores are included in the Libero® Integrated Design Environment (IDE) IP bundle, with obfuscated-RTL version included with the FREE Libero Gold license, and RTL-source version included with the $2,500 Libero Platinum license. The library of Actel's IP cores can be configured and connected in the Libero IDE SmartDesign IP design tool.

SmartFusion compatible Actel IP cores available in the Libero IDE SmartDesign IP design tool include:

Core16550 UART with or without FIFO software compatible with the Texas Instruments 16550 devices
Core3DES Implements triple DES to NIST FIPS PUB 46-3 supporting 168-bit key size
Core429 Implements ARINC 429 two-wire, point-to-point serial control communications avionics data bus
Core8051s ASM51-compatible 8051 microcontroller core with advanced peripheral bus (APB) bus
CoreABC Simple low gate count controller for APB devices
CoreAES128 Implements the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) using the Rijndael algorithm per FIPS PUB 197
CoreAHB AMBA bus interface used to connect subsystem cores to Actel's 32-bit ARM processors
CoreAHB2APB AHB slave that connects the AHB to the APB and acts as the master on the APB
CoreAHBLite Multi-master implementation of AHB-Lite bus interconnect standard used to connect subsystem cores to Actel's 32-bit ARM processors
CoreAhbSram AHB bus interface to embedded SRAM memory blocks
CoreAHBtoAPB3 AHB slave and AMBA 3 APB master bridging between high-speed AHB domain and low-power APB domain
CoreAPB AMBA bus interface used to connect subsystem cores to Actel's soft processors
CoreAPB3 AMBA bus interface used to connect subsystem cores to Actel's soft processors; fully compatible with the APB v3.0 protocol
CoreAPBSRAM APB bus interface to embedded SRAM memory blocks
CoreCORDIC CORDIC engine providing an iterative method of performing vector rotations using only shifts and adds
CoreDES Implements DES to NIST FIPS PUB 46-3 supporting 56-bit key size
CoreEDAC Error detection and correction (EDAC)
CoreFROM APB slave that for access to SmartFusion 128-byte FlashROM (FROM) memory
CoreGPIO APB bus peripheral that provides up to 32 inputs and 32 outputs for general purpose use
CoreI2C APB-driven serial interface, supporting I2C, SMBus, and PMBus data transfers
CoreInterrupt APB Slave component that provides configurable interrupt processing
CoreLPC Low-pin-count (LPC) APB component that accepts LPC host-side system interface commands
CoreMBX Allows data messages (mail) to pass back and forth from one processing element to another via "mailbox" message handling scheme
CoreMemCtrl AHB slave component that supports access to external SRAM and flash memory resources
CorePWM General purpose multi-channel pulse width modulator (PWM) core for up to 16 separate PWM digital outputs, configurable via register values
CoreQEI Quadrature Encoder core for motor control applications
CoreRemap APB slave that is a small control block with a single bit register for control aliasing of memory resources at the bottom of the processor address space
CoreRSDEC Configurable Actel FPGA–optimized Reed-Solomon decoder core RTL generator
CoreRSENC Configurable Actel FPGA–optimized Reed-Solomon encoder core RTL generator
CoreSDR Interface to external RAM supporting up to 1024 Mbytes via synchronous interface; supports all standard SDRAM chips and DIMMs
CoreSPI Serial Peripheral Interface, master and/or slave, full duplex, synchronous, 8-bit serial data transfer, high bit rates
CoreTimer APB slave that provides an interrupt-generating, programmable decrementing counter
CoreUART Serial communication controller with a flexible serial data interface
CoreUARTapb Serial communications interface with AMBA APB bus interface
CoreWatchdog APB slave providing a means of monitoring processors for and recovering from software crashes

In addition, the SmartFusion cores listed below are available for individual licensing from Actel:

Core10/100 10/100 Mbps Ethernet MAC with host controller
Core1553BRM MIL-STD-1553B Bus Controller (BC), Remote Terminal (RT) and Monitor Terminal (MT)
Core1553BRT MIL-STD-1553B Remote Terminal
CorePCIF Configurable PCI core capable of 33/66 MHz operation with either 32 or 64-bit bus widths in master, target and master/target configurations

Detailed information on Actel IP cores can be found on the Actel website at: http://www.actel.com/products/ip/DirectCores.aspx

About Actel

Actel is the leader in low power FPGAs and mixed signal FPGAs, offering the most comprehensive portfolio of system and power management solutions. Power Matters. Learn more at www.actel.com.