Xylon logiCRAFT-CC Development Kits Accelerate Development of FPGA Companion Chips for Popular Embedded Processors

New Xilinx® Spartan®-6 FPGA based kits include pre-designed PCI Express® and USB FPGA designs for companion chips that complement missing host processor features

ZAGREB, Croatia, February 2, 2011 – Xylon d.o.o., an FPGA-oriented design house, today announced the availability of three development kits based on the company’s new logiCRAFT-CC Companion Chip Platform with the Xilinx Spartan-6 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGAs). The logiCRAFT-CC hardware platform and the logicBRICKS IP cores library enable embedded module designers to quickly develop low-cost FPGA companion chips for standard processors, which may miss some features or need offloading of high-speed processing tasks.

Thanks to the high-speed interfaces provided and the pre-designed PCIe and USB reference FPGA designs with included Linux drivers and other advanced software support, designers get the resources they need for a tight integration of the FPGA companion chip with the host processor. The connectivity functions incorporated in the logiCRAFT-CC can save months of development time, and allow designers to focus on the rest of the system and its differentiating functions.

The logiCRAFT-CC demonstrates Xylon’s solutions for the Xilinx FPGA technology which can be used in any application that require flexible connectivity and high processing power.

About the logiCRAFT-CC Companion Chip Platform

The logiCRAFT-CC is designed around the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX150T device that provides PCIe blocks, advanced memory support, DSP slices and eight 3.125 Gbps low-power transceivers. The surrounding board electronics employ the FPGA resources by using the provided industry standard connectors, including the PCIe edge connector. Among other features the board also includes eight expansion slots for simple expansion. The provided reference FPGAs are designed by evaluation Xylon logicBRICKS IP cores, along with the Xilinx EDK integrated software. Kit users may make their own variation of the provided designs.Xylon logiCRAFT-CC demos (http://www.logicbricks.com/logicBRICKS-IP-Library/Video-Galleries/logiCRAFT-CC-Clips.aspx) demonstrate 3 different companion chip architectures used with Intel® Atom, ARM® Cortex -A8 and NEC V850 CPUs.

The logiCRAFT-CC-Base Companion Chip Kit

For customers looking to add FPGA companion chip to the preferred host processor, this kit is an excellent entry level platform. The base kit includes the logiCRAFT-CC board, power supply and the logiCRAFT-CC cabling set (PCIe extender, USB, SD extender and 2x open-end parallel cable). FPGA designs, software, and full documentation are available through FTP download. The provided reference FPGA designs allow for quick development of USB and PCIe based FPGA companion chip designs.

The logiCRAFT-CC-Premier Companion Chip Kit

In addition to all components included in the base kit, the logiCRAFT-CC-Premier kit includes the BeagleBoard-xM with the ARM® Cortex-A8 processor and provides a full out-of-box experience. The main interface between the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA and the ARM processor is the USB. For the BeagleBoard-xM Xylon provides the bootable SD memory card with the pre-installed Ubuntu operating system based on Linux distribution, Linux drivers for logicBRICKS IP cores and demo software applications.

The logiCRAFT-CC-Elite Companion Chip Kit

In addition to all components included in the base kit, the logiCRAFT-CC-Elite kit includes the industrial PC with the Intel® Atom N270 processor and provides a full out-of-box experience. This platform assures an immediate use of both, the USB and the PCI Express, as the main interface between the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA and the Intel Atom processor. Xylon provides the bootable USB memory stick with the pre-installed Ubuntu operating system based on Linux distribution, Linux drivers for logicBRICKS IP cores and demo software applications.

About logicBRICKS IP Library

Xylon’s IP cores, named logicBRICKS, enable users to quickly develop embedded graphics and video solutions based on Xilinx FPGAs. All logicBRICKS IP cores come with detailed documentation, software support and reference designs. The IP cores are fully supported by the Xilinx Platform Studio and the EDK integrated software solution. FPGA designers can setup logicBRICKS configurations through a GUI, optimize feature sets and control the utilization of FPGA resources, and in a drag & drop fashion, implement Xilinx SoC without hand coding.

Pricing & Availability

All logiCRAFT-CC kits can be purchased from Xylon.

The logiCRAFT-CC Base companion chip kit is available today for €1,495. Please visit http://www.logicbricks.com/Products/logiCRAFT-CC.aspx.

The logiCRAFT-CC-Elite kit, which includes the industrial PC platform with the Intel Atom processor, is available today for €1,950. Please visit http://www.logicbricks.com/Products/logiCRAFT-CC-Elite.aspx.

The logiCRAFT-CC-Premier Kit, which includes the BeagleBoard-xM with the ARM Cortex-A8 processor, will be available soon for €1,695. Please visit http://www.logicbricks.com/Products/logiCRAFT-CC-Premier.aspx.

About Xylon

Xylon is an electronic company focused on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) design development, established in 1995 and based in Zagreb, Croatia. Xylon offers a comprehensive IP cores library named logicBRICKS. logicBRICKS are optimized to suit Xilinx FPGA architectures. Xylon’s expertise in the fields of embedded graphics, video and networking is confirmed by a large number of successful FPGA designs, produced by our partners and distributed worldwide. All Xylon IP cores are exhaustively tested to ensure that they can be easily implemented and integrated in the customers’ designs. More information can be found at www.logicbricks.com, the official Xylon web site.