FS2 Announces Ethernet Enabled Solutions for Altera Nios II; Probe is Now a Shared Resource, Cost Effective, Offers Remote Log-On

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2005--First Silicon Solutions (FS2) today announced that the FS2 System Navigator(TM) debug tool with 10/100 Gigabit Ethernet connections is available for the Altera Nios(R) II processors.

FS2 System Navigator is a complete JTAG-based debug solution for Nios II. It has advanced features, such as real-time trace capture, triggers on data and bus cycles, and performance monitoring. The new FS2 System Navigator includes a 10/100 Gigabit Ethernet connection, making it a powerful, cost effective, shared resource in the engineering lab with high performance Nios II designs.

About FS2 System Navigator for Altera Nios II

FS2 System Navigator starts with FS2's OCI(R) (On-chip Instrumentation) debug block technology. The OCI includes powerful basic features for software and hardware debug and is included in the Altera Nios II software release at no charge. Optional advanced features such as deeper trace, additional hardware triggers, and performance analysis can be purchased separately for state-of-the-art tools at cost-effective price points.

FS2 System Navigator includes a performance analysis mode that greatly facilitates user optimization of hardware and software for the FPGA environment. Typical performance measurements include cache hit/misses, measuring I/O activity such as interrupt frequency from each device, packet writes, UART traffic, DMA starts, or even a unique value written to a register. Other measurements include basic timing duration of repetitive algorithms along with the number of instructions executed.

Flexible Debug Options for Source Level Debug

For source-level debug, the FS2 System Navigator is supported by the Eclipse-based Nios II debugger included in the Altera Nios II development Kit. FS2 System Navigator functions have been fully integrated with the Eclipse Development Environment to provide seamless operation and a comprehensive software development environment with sophisticated features, ease of use, and minimal cost to the developer. The Mentor Graphics/ATI code|lab(R) debugger is also supported, providing complete support for the Nucleus RTOS environment. In addition, the Viosoft Arriba debugger has also been integrated with the FS2 tool to provide a comprehensive solution for embedded Linux designs.

Price and Availability

FS2 System Navigator with Ethernet connections for the Altera's Nios II family is available today by contacting FS2 or visiting www.fs2.com.

About First Silicon Solutions

First Silicon Solutions (FS2) specializes in hardware verification and debug technologies including OCI (On-Chip Instrumentation), custom silicon IP, development tools, and design services for programming, testing and debug of embedded systems in FPGA, SOC, SOPC, ASSP and ASIC designs. FS2 provides full system solutions with IP blocks, hardware, and software tools used at several stages in the development cycle from system design and verification to software development and debug. FS2 products enable silicon vendors and their customers to take their designs from "first silicon" to production faster, with a better understanding of the design performance and overall operation -- for faster time-to-market and higher quality products.

FS2, FS2 System Navigator and OCI are trademarks of First Silicon Solutions. All other marks are property of their respective owners.

There is a pipe symbol in the product name between Mentor Graphics/ATI code and lab.