HARDI Electronics Unveils Second Generation ASIC Prototyping Platform

The new HAPS-20 multi-FPGA motherboard increases performance at a lower price than previous version

Lund, Sweden, December 13, 2004 * * * HARDI Electronics AB, a pioneer in high performance ASIC prototyping, today announced the availability of a new motherboard in the HAPS family that will give customers access to multi-gigabit serial links, embedded PowerPC processors and more than 1600 pairs of LVDS signals. The board, named HAPS 20, is targeted for designers who need high-speed prototypes of large ASICs.

"We are proud to announce what we believe to be the most advanced FPGA platform for ASIC prototyping today," stated Lars-Eric Lundgren, president and CEO of HARDI. "Our customers are facing complexity and time-to-market pressures like never before. Not only does our HAPS-20 keep pace with these challenges, but it offers even more functionality at as much as a 20% lower cost over the previous generation. In addition, our customers are able to verify designs faster using our best-in-class connectivity and Lego-like flexibility."

HAPS 20 is carefully designed for maximum performance, with respect to signal integrity, speed and other critical issues. The board can be used as a stand-alone device to prototype ASIC designs up to four million gates. Capacity can be further increased by stacking two or more HAPS 20 boards together. The HAPS-20 conforms to the HAPSTrak standard, which guarantees compatibility with previous and future generation HAPS motherboards and daughter boards, (e.g. RAM, I/O, communication, connector boards, etc.).

The new board uses four Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP70/100 devices in the largest pin count package, offering 80 multi-gigabit serial links, 8 embedded PowerPC processors and over 3000 user I/Os. All I/Os can be used in differential mode (LVDS), enabling long distance drive capability at transmission rates exceeding 800 Mb/s per channel. More than 2000 interconnects between the FPGA devices make it ideal for large ASIC designs with wide busses.

The user I/Os are divided into three groups with separate power, which means that three different I/O voltages can be used at the same time. Programming is done via a standard JTAG interface or from a CompactFlash memory. As with all HAPS boards, the data programmed into the FPGAs can be encrypted by a battery-backed encryption key. All necessary voltages are generated locally from a single external 5V source. An on-board temperature watchdog and built-in self-tests are guarantees that the ASIC design is running on flawless hardware.

"HAPS-20 is a refinement of the HAPS-10 concept," stated Jonas Nilsson, worldwide technical manager of HAPS. "We've made I/O signaling more flexible with adjustable signal levels, and the switch to Virtex-II Pro devices not only gives access to multi-gigabit I/O but also makes prototyping faster. HAPS 20 gives the designer more time to spend optimizing the ASIC design rather than the FPGA board."

HAPS Leverages Off-The-Shelf Software

HAPS customers get to verification faster by using off-the-shelf software for synthesis and debugging - including Synplicity's Certify for synthesis and Xilinx ChipScope, and Synplicity's Identify and Temento's DiaLite for real-time debugging.

For Data sheet please visit: http://www.hardi.com/haps/literature/haps-20-ds.pdf.

Pricing and Availability

The HAPS 20 board is available today with US pricing starting at $41,900 and European pricing starting at Euro 36,300. For more information about the company's prototyping products, please visit: http://www.hardi.com/haps/

About the HAPS Prototyping System

HAPS is a modular FPGA board system providing high speed, high capacity, real-time debugging and full ASIC functionality for ASIC prototyping designers. The system is composed of a multi-FPGA board and one or more standard or custom daughter boards. To accommodate very large designs, designers can stack several boards. Using HAPS, the ASIC prototype gives designers virtually the same functionality and performance as the ASIC. HAPS' modular approach makes it one of the most flexible prototyping systems available today. HAPS adds functionality by allowing designers to place daughter boards anywhere in the system, whereas most prototyping systems have fixed features that cannot be moved. HAPS addresses critical issues regarding the prototyping board design such as cross-talk, signal integrity, impedance matching, connectivity problems, size and speed. The robust and reliable hardware, together with the modular approach, allows the designer to concentrate on the actual ASIC design, which can shorten the verification time by months.

About HARDI Electronics AB

Founded in 1987, HARDI Electronics is a pioneer in the field of structured HDL-design. The company's knowledge and experience ranges from SoC design using full custom ASICs to a wide variety of designs with programmable logic. HARDI introduced its first ASIC prototyping product in 2000 and today has many successful installations in North America, Europe and Asia. The privately held company is headquartered in Sweden. For more information, please visit the company's website at http://www.hardi.com.