Avnet Electronics Marketing, MathWorks, Texas Instruments, 4DSP and Xilinx collaborate to deliver new kits that address a full range of high performance to cost effective DSP requirements

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 6 -- Xilinx, Inc. today announced the availability of three new development kits that further extend the ability of digital signal processing developers to easily adopt FPGAs in order to reach the highest levels of signal processing performance, optimize for cost and power and relieve system bottlenecks through co-processing. As Xilinx Targeted Design Platforms are made possible through work with industry-leading distribution, design services, tools and hardware partners, the new additions to the Xilinx DSP portfolio give developers the hardware, tools and reference designs to ensure a productive design flow across a diverse range of DSP applications.

"We recognize that the market demands for DSP requirements and design approaches are broad and have thus worked with industry leaders Texas Instruments, Avnet Electronics Marketing, MathWorks, and 4DSP to provide complete development platforms that deliver design methodologies aligned to the way developers work," said Tim Erjavec, senior director, platform solutions and services marketing at Xilinx. "Working together, we are delivering kits that provide developers with the ideal balance of FPGA, processor and DSP resources for a wide range of DSP applications in the areas of video, medical imaging, wireless, aerospace and defense and many other segments."

Xilinx Targeted Design Platforms for DSP can easily scale for adding new capabilities, standards, features and support. Xilinx, customers, partners or other third parties can easily deliver enhanced capabilities to an existing platform, which increases value for end users and reduces development and investment schedules. The DSP Targeted Design Platforms address application requirements across the performance spectrum, including specific focus on peak performance, price-optimized performance and co-processing acceleration.

The new DSP development kits include a new high-performance Virtex-6 FPGA DSP kit with integrated ADC/DAC capability, an enhanced low-cost Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Kit and a Spartan-6 FPGA Co-Processing DSP kit. All three kits have integrated AMBA4 AXI4 interconnect and IP support.

Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit with integrated High Speed Data Converters

The new Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit targets peak signal processing performance applications and features Texas Instruments' Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC) on an FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) designed by 4DSP that enables customers to tune performance in both the analog and digital domains. The kit includes a targeted reference design that allows for full configuration and control of the ADC/DAC from the Virtex-6 FPGA, enabling users to optimize for signal-to-noise ratio loss points, as well as quantization, analog filtering and gain. The kit features AXI4 support to enable easy integration of Xilinx and third party IP with a high performance point-to-point interconnect optimized to reduce resource utilization with no impact on performance. The integration of ADC/DAC technology with Virtex-6 devices can save weeks or months of development time.

This DSP platform has broad applications in a wide variety of markets including aerospace and defense, medical technology, high performance computing, and next generation wireless communications.

Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit

For customers looking to add DSP to existing systems while optimizing performance at the best possible cost and power consumption, the new Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Development kit is an excellent entry level platform with added AXI4 support through the latest version of the Xilinx ISE Design Suite. The kit's baseboard includes a Spartan-6 LX150T device capable of delivering price optimized DSP performance and integrated transceivers for high speed system connectivity. In addition to a number of design tutorials, a Digital Up and Digital Down Conversion targeted reference design is supplied that can be used as-is out of the box or modified and extended within a familiar design environment of either RTL, (Model-Based Design with MATLAB and Simulink) or high-level "C" synthesis to accelerate development.

Spartan-6 FPGA Co-Processing DSP Kit

Xilinx and Avnet Electronics Marketing have developed a co-processing platform that enables software designers to reduce or eliminate application bottlenecks using the Spartan-6 FPGA to achieve system accelerations. The Spartan-6 FPGA Co-Processing DSP Kit optimizes the key strengths of high performance FPGAs, system control processing and digital signal processing in one integrated platform.

The Spartan-6 FPGA is ideal for off-loading or "Co-processing" ultra high performance digital signal processing or providing flexible peripheral expansion options. The kit includes an AXI4 Co-Processing reference design to illustrate these performance boosting capabilities. Designers can get started quickly using familiar design environments included with the kit.

Pricing and Availability

The Virtex-6 FPGA DSP kit, which includes the ML605 development board, Xilinx ISE System Edition, AXI4 DSP IP, Virtex-6 FPGA targeted reference design, and Texas Instruments ADC/DAC technology on an FMC daughter card from 4DSP, is available today for $3,995. Visit www.em.avnet.com/virtex6dsp2.

The Spartan-6 FPGA DSP kit includes the Avnet Electronics Marketing LX150T development board, Xilinx ISE System Edition, AXI4 DSP IP, a Spartan-6 FPGA targeted reference design and is available today for $1,995. The Spartan-6 FPGA Co-Processing kit is available for order entry today for $1,695. Visit www.em.avnet.com/spartan6dsp and www.em.avnet.com/spartan6omap.

All DSP kit targeted reference designs are delivered in RTL, Simulink /System Generator formats to support user choice and to improve ease-of-use and productivity. Additionally, tutorials are available for customers looking to design using C/C++ using the AutoESL High level synthesis environment. Both MathWorks and AutoESL provide development tools for evaluation via their websites. For more information about Xilinx Targeted Design Platforms for DSP, visit www.xilinx.com/technology/dsp.htm.

About Xilinx

Xilinx (Nasdaq: XLNX) is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.

Avnet Electronics Marketing

"Our goal is to deliver complete solutions to our customers that draw from the best hardware, software and IP from the many partners we work with," said Jim Beneke, vice president of global technical marketing, Avnet Electronics Marketing. "The Xilinx platform strategy and open collaboration enables us to combine analog, digital and other tools to deliver complete development kits with the right components to dramatically accelerate system development."

Avnet Electronics Marketing is a key partner in all of the Xilinx DSP Kits, designing boards, reference designs, and ultimately bundling the Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Kit, the Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Kit with integrated ADC/DAC, and the Spartan-6 Co-Processing Development Kit. Avnet and Xilinx aligned their platform development strategies to maximize application coverage and provide the most productive out-of-box experience available to DSP system designers.

MathWorks

"We see increased demand from customers who are looking to take algorithms to FPGAs," said Amnon Gai, manager in MathWorks partner programs and corporate development team. "We've worked closely with Xilinx to bridge the critical gap between DSP algorithm development and implementation in an FPGA and the results are impressive. Customers using MATLAB and Simulink interface are able to quickly develop algorithms to meet system specifications and then implement these algorithms in the FPGA achieving results that match custom RTL. The result is a fast development flow familiar to the majority of DSP designers."

MathWorks is a long time industry collaborator with Xilinx. MathWorks provides a Model-Based Design environment which is optimal for a variety of different signal processing design personas, making it easier for developers to leverage the performance benefits of FPGAs in DSP systems. Information for getting access to evaluate MathWorks products is provided with all Xilinx DSP development kits.

4DSP

"Digital convergence is forcing DSP designers to tune performance in both the digital and analog realms," said Pierrick Vulliez, 4DSP CTO and founder. "In collaboration with Texas Instruments and Xilinx, we've defined an interface that allows designers to control key capabilities on data convert technology from within the FPGA. When combined with the ability to change digital filter characteristics within the FPGA, users can now explore both analog and digital optimizations simultaneously to achieve best results. Using the FMC standard, we are able to deploy solutions using different data converter technology in a fraction the time it would ordinarily take."

4DSP makes standardized FMC daughter cards to expand the capabilities of other base/carrier boards for key applications and specific market applications. This relationship leverages the Xilinx FMC Platform strategy with a single integrated ADC/DAC card to upgrade the high performance Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit. This delivers all the benefits of flexible FPGA interfacing to full Analog-Digital/Digital-Analog high speed data converters.

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Source: Xilinx, Inc.