New Xilinx MicroBlaze Soft Processor Increases Clock Frequency By 25 Percent

The Xilinx MicroBlaze 4.00 solution is a scalable processor system that enables designers to tune performance to match the compute requirements of target applications and choose greater mathematical accuracy when needed without a significant cost penalty. The enhanced feature set also raises the bar for flexibility and ease of use with user-configurable hardware options, improved debug capabilities, and complete backward compatibility with earlier releases. Xilinx will showcase the MicroBlaze 4.00 processor for the first time this week during the Spring Processor Forum held May 16th through 19th in San Jose, Calif.

"As the cost of designing and manufacturing custom chips continues to soar, processor cores optimized for FPGAs have the potential to lure designers away from ASICs and SoCs," said Tom R. Halfhill, senior analyst of In-Stat's Microprocessor Report. "The newest version of the Xilinx MicroBlaze processor core offers more reasons to use an FPGA, such as higher clock speeds and an optional, tightly-coupled FPU. In embedded applications such as motor control, industrial machine control, multimedia, and office automation, an FPU can make a big difference."

MicroBlaze FPU

The 32-bit single precision, IEEE-754 compatible MicroBlaze FPU provides designers with a processor tailored to execute both integer and floating-point operations. Integration with the MicroBlaze processor means CPU resources like the pipeline, processor register set and other processor resources become tightly coupled and shared with the FPU for optimum data bandwidth. All FPU operations are enabled through the standard programming model with full compiler, design tool and instruction-set simulator support.

"Finding a processor to meet performance, feature, and cost targets is very challenging. The MicroBlaze processor provides a scalable solution that is fully customizable, area-efficient and can be optimized for our most cost-sensitive designs," said Said Zahrai, project manager at ABB. "The MicroBlaze 4.00 solution with the new FPU delivers even more performance, flexibility and ease of use, so our embedded developers can extend the life cycle of our existing products and bring new products to market even faster."

The MicroBlaze 4.00 processor also offers a host of ready-to-use, pre-built configuration options. These include new pattern-compare instructions for faster location of string, byte or word matches, which are particularly useful with data-intensive multimedia applications. User selectable features such as the configurable hardware multipliers, divider unit, and cache links can now be disabled when not needed to save critical logic resources.

Additionally, new debug instructions can be inserted into the processor pipeline to make data more accessible and 15 times faster to download for hardware debug, while also reducing overall debug logic by 50 percent. To assist the increasing number of Agilent customers using the MicroBlaze processor, Agilent has added logic analysis support to enable design teams to capture real-time trace for debug and characterization.

"FPGAs play an increasingly important role in our customers' product development, and logic analyzer measurements are critical in the debug of these FPGAs and surrounding systems," said Joel Woodward, senior product manager of Agilent's Design Validation Division. "The combination of Agilent logic analyzers and Agilent's new MicroBlaze inverse assembler will shorten debug and validation time, and help digital designers bring new products to market faster."

The MicroBlaze soft processor core is available as part of the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) U.S. list priced at $495. In addition to the MicroBlaze core, the EDK includes a comprehensive set of system tools to design an embedded application in a Xilinx FPGA. The VHDL source code for the MicroBlaze core is also available for purchase. Development boards with the MicroBlaze 4.00 processor are also available from Xilinx and its distributors including Avnet, Memec and Nu Horizons.

Poseidon Design Systems Introduces ESL Tools That Analyze, Optimize and Accelerate Processor-Based Designs
Triton Tool Suite Enables Designers to Trade off Performance, Power and Cost for SoCs, Platform ASICs, Structured Arrays and FPGAs

Poseidon Design Systems, Inc. today announced an Electronic System Level (ESL) tool suite - Triton Tuner(TM) and Triton Builder(TM) - that automates the process of optimizing and substantially accelerating processor-based designs. Based on a SystemC software and hardware co-simulation environment, transactional-level modeling (TLM) technology, and Poseidon's innovative HW/SW partitioning technology, the Triton tool suite enables SoC designers to co-simulate hardware and software at the architectural level, then tune and accelerate the embedded system for optimal performance, power and cost.
XILINX RANKS #1 IN FPGA EMBEDDED PROCESSING SOLUTIONS
Latest CMP Media embedded processor survey reaffirms lead with comprehensive portfolio of hard and soft processor solutions for FPGAs

Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today reported independent survey results clearly establishing the Xilinx suite of embedded soft processors as the solution of choice for FPGA designs. Xilinx placed first overall in FPGA solutions with 25 percent of the respondents indicating that they have purchased or used Xilinx architectures in the last 12 months and ranked in the top ten among chip architecture vendors. Approximately 50 percent of the respondents who use hard or soft processors will consider using Xilinx solutions in the next 12 months.
Canon Announces EOS Rebel XS SLR Camera
Canon USA today announced the introduction of the EOS Rebel XS, a new entry-level digital camera that affordably puts Canon SLR technology such as an Optical Imaged Stabilized lens and easy-to-use professional features into the hands of emerging photographers.
Citibank ATM breach reveals PIN security problems
(AP) -- Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores this year and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record.
Wards didn't tell consumers about credit card hack
(AP) -- An old name in retail was hit by a modern scourge - a hack of its customers' credit card numbers - but didn't inform the consumers, revealing how data breaches might be heavily undercounted even with new notification laws.
Beyond chess: Deep green models rapid change for combat commanders
Can an artificial intelligence program anticipate military surprises? The USC Information Sciences Institute is playing a $7.6 million part in a DARPA research effort called Deep Green aimed at creating a system that can do so, one that might help future combat commanders in the field anticipate enemy moves.
Supercomputers join cancer fight
Edmonton-A University of Alberta physicist will lead the fight against cancer, armed with a supercomputer and the will to make Alberta one of the world's top innovation centres.

Visa business network boosts Facebook's ad efforts
(AP) -- Facebook Inc.'s quest to lure more advertisers to its popular online hangout is getting an assist from Visa Inc.'s marketing machine.

New Xilinx MicroBlaze Soft Processor Increases Clock Frequency By 25 Percent

Related stories:

News discussion: