ESL Design Targets Convergent DSP and FPGA

Celoxica, the leading provider of C-based electronic system level (ESL) design and synthesis solutions, and Sundance, the leading supplier and manufacturer of advanced digital signal processing (DSP) and reconfigurable FPGA systems, today announced an agreement that bridges the gap between conventional design flows for DSP and FPGA systems. The companies will combine expertise to offer out-of-the-box system design solutions backed up by their established partnerships with Texas Instruments Incorporated and Xilinx Inc. Typically performed by system and software engineers, DSP programming relies on a software-oriented methodology. FPGA devices are often programmed using design tools evolved from hardware-centric approaches. The different approaches and levels of abstraction make it difficult to combine the two technologies. The joint offering from Celoxica and Sundance uses C-based ESL tools to enable system optimisations employing a comprehensive array of off-the-shelf modules and systems to address the critical issues of hardware/software co-design, DSP/FPGA integration, power utilisation and cost reductions from design conception through to deployment. "System designers commonly choose between DSP for signal processing systems and FPGAs to implement complex algorithms and signal processing systems," said Phil Bishop, president and CEO of Celoxica. "Combined they can offer a compelling solution for optimisation of power, performance and flexibility. The key to unlocking this potential is providing design ease-of-use from both the DSP and FPGA perspectives." "Many of our customers have already moved to model-based design and IP reuse to help streamline design and boost productivity," said Flemming Christensen, managing director of Sundance. "With more and more effort now being placed on value-added IP and customisation inside a mixed DSP/ FPGA system, the addition of C-based design that tackles complex algorithm development in hardware and software is inevitable." The result of this partnership is the development of algorithm acceleration solutions for vertical applications, including C-based IP modules, optimised FPGA hardware accelerators, and reference board prototypes built on Sundance boards programmed using Celoxica software tools. The companies will initially focus their efforts on software-defined radio (SDR) and complex image processing, and will begin rolling out solutions in Q4/05 at the Global Signal Processing Expo (GSPx) in Santa Clara. "With this improved design flow for DSP plus FPGA based systems, customers can more easily integrate the performance of TI DSP with FPGA based co-processors", said Ram Sathappan, SDR business development manager, Texas instruments. "C-based design and synthesis for hardware and software in DSP/ FPGA based COTS systems will address the needs of a wide range of designers." "Xilinx and our Alliance Program members are seeing increasing market acceptance of our FPGAs for a broad range of DSP applications. We are gratified that Celoxica and Sundance have combined their expertise to make DSP development more accessible to design engineers to further accelerate this growth" said Robert Bielby, Xilinx senior director for vertical markets and partnerships.