Actel Broadens Popular PCI Product Family With CorePCIF

Versatile Core Offers a Host of Customer-Defined Features Including Improved Application Interface

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) today introduced CorePCIF, the newest member of the company's popular PCI product family that also includes CorePCI and CorePCIX. The most versatile field-programmable gate array (FPGA) PCI core available, CorePCIF incorporates netlist and register transfer level (RTL) versions with 33 and 66 MHz speeds, 32- and 64-bit bus widths, as well as target, master and target + master configurations all in one core. Additionally, Actel incorporated a host of new customer-requested features, including the addition of FIFOs at the application interface, CardBus and Compact PCI support, a simplified plug- and-play interface for PCI and an improved user test bench. Actel's PCI-SIG- compliant family is suitable for a variety of market segments, including military, aerospace, industrial, computer and storage.

"CorePCIF was designed to meet the requests of Actel's customers and provide unmatched flexibility and value," said Yankin Tanurhan, director of IP and applications at Actel. "The rich feature set coupled with the inherent benefits offered by Actel's nonvolatile FPGAs, such as live at power-up capabilities and firm-error immunity, enable this new product to benefit the entire PCI user community."

New CorePCIF Delivers Wish List of Features

In addition to the feature set defined in the PCI 2.3 standard, the new core offers features requested by a number of Actel's 200+ PCI customers. Unique to Actel, the core is available in RTL, netlist and free evaluation versions, enabling designers to select the best format for their individual designs. By adding FIFO support, Actel enables an asynchronous backend and even higher throughput than possible with PCI devices or intellectual property (IP) that have a synchronous application interface. Likewise, with support for the CardBus standard, a 32-bit version of the PCMCIA PC card standard, the products of CorePCIF CardBus users can operate four to six times faster than 16-bit PC cards. The core also supports the Compact PCI standard, which is popular in a variety of markets including military and industrial.

The core has a simplified plug-and-play interface for PCI due to its six base address registers (BARs), an improvement over CorePCI's two BARs. The core offers a fully updated user-configurable test bench, allowing users to build a system test bench to their specifications. Additionally, the reconfigured hot-swap capability enables simple hot swap per the Compact PCI standard, while Actel's inherently live at power-up, nonvolatile devices uniquely ensure hot swap with no delay.

Actel is the only company to offer industrial temperature grade 66 MHz PCI capability on a value-based FPGA, the ProASIC3 device. The core is capable of 66 MHz/64-bit, 33/32, 66/32 and 33/64 operation. A number of configurations are also available in both CorePCI and CorePCIF, including target, master and target + master. Competitive IP cores require users to buy two or more IP cores for all of these configurations. Additionally, Actel's CorePCIF does not require fixed placement and is smaller and less expensive. For example, users can obtain a 33/32 or 66/64 PCI target on an Actel ProASIC3 device for less than $5 in volume quantities.

Pricing and Availability

Actel's CorePCIF is available now to work with all recent Actel antifuse and flash product families, including Actel's third-generation ProASIC3 flash- based FPGAs. Pricing starts at $5000 for a single-use netlist. Existing CorePCI family customers can take advantage of a special introductory price of $1000 for a single-use netlist. A free evaluation version of CorePCIF is available for download via Actel's Web site at http://www.actel.com/products/ip .

Actel DirectCore and CompanionCore Solutions

Actel offers its own system-level IP solutions, called DirectCores, specifically designed and optimized for use with Actel devices. The company also offers third-party IP blocks, called CompanionCores, that have been tested and verified in Actel FPGAs. Covering applications ranging from embedded systems to consumer and communications, the offered cores include bus interfaces, communication controllers and interfaces, processors and peripherals, encryption and memory controllers, as well as multimedia and error correction.

Actel DirectCore and CompanionCore products offer seamless implementation through Actel's suite of internal and third-party EDA development tools and quality documentation service and support, thereby streamlining the design process, enabling faster time to market and minimizing design costs and risks. Customers may access and download free evaluation versions of cores from Actel's broad IP portfolio through its Web-based IP evaluation program at www.actel.com/products/ip.

About Actel

Actel Corporation is a supplier of innovative programmable logic solutions, including FPGAs based on antifuse and flash technologies, high- performance IP cores, software development tools and design services, targeted for the high-speed communications, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) replacement and radiation-tolerant markets. Founded in 1985, Actel employs more than 500 people worldwide. The Company is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, Calif., 94043-4655. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835). Internet: http://www.actel.com .

NOTE: The Actel name and logo are trademarks of Actel Corporation. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE  Actel Corporation