HARDI Electronics Releases a Real-Time ASIC Prototyping Platform at DATE

Munich, Germany, March 3, 2003 * * *  HARDI Electronics AB, a leading design house, today announced the newest version of its HARDI ASIC Prototyping system (HAPS). Version 2.1 will be shown at DATE (Design Automation and Test in Europe) and is available now. HAPS provides real-time speed, real-time debugging and full ASIC functionality for ASIC prototyping designers. Version 2.1 has higher capacity and 50% more user I/O than previous versions. It allows for up to 8M ASIC gates running at over 200 MHz on a single board. To accommodate larger designs, customers can also stack several boards. Using HAPS 2.1, the ASIC prototype gives designers the same functionality and performance as the ASIC.

HARDI Electronics is a member of Synplicity's "Partners in Prototyping" and the company will demonstrate HAPS 2.1 in the Synplicity booth at DATE #F56.

HAPS 2.1 addresses critical issues regarding the prototyping board design such as cross-talk, signal integrity, impedance matches, connectivity problems, size and speed. HAPS gives the designer more time to spend on the design rather than the board.

Complete ASIC prototyping platform
HAPS contains the functionality needed for ASIC prototypes such as: FPGAs for implementing the ASIC logic, connectors for adding IP-blocks, clock nets designed for high speed, configurable connectivity for partitioning, I/O-connections and a carefully planned board running at 200 MHz. Using up to four Xilinx Virtex-II devices, even the largest and most complicated designs can easily be implemented.

Supports any ASIC design
HAPS is designed to support any ASIC, without modifications. The ASIC logic enters the FPGAs and any internal IP on daughter-boards. The width of the FPGA buses is easily selected.

Off-the-shelf daughter-boards
Several standard IPs are available as daughter-boards to support any design, e.g., SRAM, Ethernet, PCI and Firewire boards. Using HARDI's expertise customer-specific daughter-boards are developed within two weeks.

Portable
HAPS can be integrated in a case, which includes power supply and cooling fans. This makes HAPS completely portable and stand-alone, an advantage for customer presentations and software debugging. The entire ASIC prototype is stored on a CompactFlash/MicroDrive disk that configures the prototype in seconds. Encryption ensures that the design is easily kept secret.

Real-time debugging
HAPS fully supports Xilinx ChipScope and Synplicity's Identify for real-time debugging. All internal signals can be probed, triggered and viewed in a waveform window.

Tool support
HAPS supports all synthesis and debugging tools on the market. Drivers for Synplicity's Certify are also supplied. Certify is a tool that automates the translation process from an ASIC to FPGAs. All ASIC-specific code is implemented efficiently on the board, including IP-blocks. HAPS and Certify minimize the amount of work and typically saves several months in the development and debugging of a prototype.

Availability
HAPS is available today and pricing starts at $11,900. For more information on the product, please visit http://www.hardi.com/haps.

About HARDI Electronics 
Founded in 1987, HARDI Electronics is a pioneer in the field of structured design. The knowledge and experience ranges from ASIC design with silicon compilers, to the synthesis of programmable devices and the creation of VHDL designs – the first of which was produced a few months after the company's founding. HARDI has worked with ASIC prototyping since 1999 and has been successfully involved in several ASIC prototyping projects. The first version of HAPS was released in the year 2000. The company is headquartered in Sweden.

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