Actel Broadens Popular PCI Product Family with CorePCIF
Versatile Core Offers a Host of Customer-Defined
Features Including Improved Application Interface
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 01, 2005 —
Actel Corporation
(Nasdaq: ACTL) today introduced CorePCIF, the newest member of the company's
popular PCI product family that also includes CorePCI and CorePCIX. The
most versatile field-programmable gate array (FPGA) PCI core available,
CorePCIF incorporates netlist and register transfer level (RTL) versions
with 33 and 66 MHz speeds, 32- and 64-bit bus widths, as well as target,
master and target + master configurations all in one core. Additionally,
Actel incorporated a host of new customer-requested features, including
the addition of FIFOs at the application interface, Cardbus and Compact
PCI support, a simplified plug-and-play interface for PCI and an improved
user test bench. Actel's PCI-SIG-compliant family is suitable for a variety
of market segments, including military, aerospace, industrial, computer
and storage.
"CorePCIF was designed to meet the requests of Actel's customers
and provide unmatched flexibility and value," said Yankin Tanurhan,
director of IP and applications at Actel. "The rich feature set
coupled with the inherent benefits offered by Actel's nonvolatile FPGAs,
such as live at power-up capabilities and firm-error immunity, enable
this new product to benefit the entire PCI user community."
New CorePCIF Delivers Wish List of Features
In addition to the feature set defined in the PCI 2.3 standard, the
new core offers features requested by a number of Actel's 200+ PCI customers.
Unique to Actel, the core is available in RTL, netlist and free evaluation
versions, enabling designers to select the best format for their individual
designs. By adding FIFO support, Actel enables an asynchronous backend
and even higher throughput than possible with PCI devices or intellectual
property (IP) that have a synchronous application interface. Likewise,
with support for the CardBus standard, a 32-bit version of the PCMCIA
PC card standard, the products of CorePCIF CardBus users can operate
four to six times faster than 16-bit PC cards. The core also supports
the Compact PCI standard, which is popular in a variety of markets including
military and industrial.
The core has a simplified plug-and-play interface for PCI due to its
six base address registers (BARs), an improvement over CorePCI's two
BARs. The core offers a fully updated user-configurable test bench, allowing
users to build a system test bench to their specifications. Additionally,
the reconfigured hot-swap capability enables simple hot swap per the
Compact PCI standard, while Actel's inherently live at power-up, nonvolatile
devices uniquely ensure hot swap with no delay.
Actel is the only company to offer industrial temperature grade 66 MHz
PCI capability on a value-based FPGA, the ProASIC3 device. The core is
capable of 66 MHz/64-bit, 33/32, 66/32 and 33/64 operation. A number
of configurations are also available in both CorePCI and CorePCIF, including
target, master and target + master. Competitive IP cores require users
to buy two or more IP cores for all of these configurations. Additionally,
Actel's CorePCIF does not require fixed placement and is smaller and
less expensive. For example, users can obtain a 33/32 or 66/64 PCI target
on an Actel ProASIC3 device for less than $5 in volume quantities.
Pricing and Availability
Actel's CorePCIF is available now to work with all recent Actel antifuse
and flash product families, including Actel's third-generation ProASIC3
flash-based FPGAs. Pricing starts at $5000 for a single-use netlist.
Existing CorePCI family customers can take advantage of a special introductory
price of $1000 for a single-use netlist. A free evaluation version of
CorePCIF is available for download via Actel's Web site at http://www.actel.com/products/ip.
Actel DirectCore and CompanionCore Solutions
Actel offers its own system-level IP solutions, called DirectCores,
specifically designed and optimized for use with Actel devices. The company
also offers third-party IP blocks, called CompanionCores, that have been
tested and verified in Actel FPGAs. Covering applications ranging from
embedded systems to consumer and communications, the offered cores include
bus interfaces, communication controllers and interfaces, processors
and peripherals, encryption and memory controllers, as well as multimedia
and error correction.
Actel DirectCore and CompanionCore products offer seamless implementation
through Actel's suite of internal and third-party EDA development tools
and quality documentation service and support, thereby streamlining the
design process, enabling faster time to market and minimizing design
costs and risks. Customers may access and download free evaluation versions
of cores from Actel's broad IP portfolio through its Web-based IP evaluation
program at www.actel.com/products/ip.
About Actel
Actel Corporation is a supplier of innovative programmable logic solutions,
including field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) based on antifuse
and flash technologies, high-performance intellectual property (IP)
cores, software development tools and design services, targeted for
the high-speed communications, application-specific integrated circuit
(ASIC) replacement and radiation-tolerant markets. Founded in 1985,
Actel employs more than 500 people worldwide. The Company is traded
on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered
at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA, 94043-4655. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL
(992-2835). Internet:: http://www.actel.com.
Contact: Stephanie Mrus, Actel Corporation, 650.318.4614
