NEWS
Wind River Delivers Co-Processing Development Platform for Rapid Bring-Up of Re-Configurable Computing Applications
Powered by IBM's Power PC(tm) 405GP embedded processor, the SBC 405GP reference design enables engineers to jump start system and software application development before their own co-processing hardware is available, saving valuable time in the development process. In co-processing designs, the CPU typically runs system applications while the FPGA manages other computationally intensive tasks, resulting in significantly improved system performance. Further, FPGA hardware can be programmed with new functionality after the product has been deployed and is often referred to as "re-configurable computing."
"The benefits of co-processing technology are enormous, and advances in this field continue to blur the lines separating hardware and software," said John Fogelin, chief technologist and vice president of Wind River's Platforms business unit. "The Wind River value chain provides developers of these complex co-processing systems a complete development platform to bring-up hardware, test and debug code, migrate bottlenecked code to hardware where appropriate, and remotely upgrade deployed re-configurable products. Wind River is well positioned to drive further innovation in this exciting area of computing."
"Wind River's 405GP development board is the first solution to give embedded systems engineers the unique capability to develop Platform FPGA solutions in either a loosely coupled architecture using an embedded system bus or a tightly coupled architecture with an embedded processor bus," said Rich Sevcik, senior vice president of FPGA products at Xilinx. "As we see one third of our design wins requiring field upgradability, this solution offers a tremendous value to the growing number of embedded systems designers who leverage programmability." Please see today's Xilinx release.
The platform includes an FPGA daughter card co-developed with Xilinx that plugs onto the SBC 405GP motherboard, providing a high-speed link between the CPU and FPGA and enabling users to re-configure or re-program the application at any time. The motherboard also supports a wide range of re-configurable PCI and PCI mezzanine cards (PMC) on the market, including several from Alpha Data Parallel Systems Ltd., allowing users to continuously upgrade the system with the latest FPGAs on the market. Other key benefits include detailed schematics, VxWorks® board support package, and pre-integration with all of Wind River's hardware-assisted development tools.
Complete Re-configurable Computing Value Chain
In addition to the SBC 405GP reference design, original equipment manufacturers developing re-configurable applications can leverage Wind River's extensive value chain including:
- Real-time operating systems (RTOSes) - Wind River's VxWorks RTOS provides the best environment for closely coupled CPU and FPGA systems, facilitating the migration of software content from the CPU to an FPGA.
- Development Tools - Wind River's Tornado® integrated development environment provides a graphical project workspace including RTOS management tools, debuggers and compilers. In addition, the visionWARE design tool accelerates and simplifies writing target diagnostics and initialization code for co-processing designs, and includes the visionBOOT boot loader for programming flash memory and FPGAs.
- Integrated Re-configurable Partner Technologies - Wind River technology is integrated with top re-configurable computing technology providers, including Xilinx and Celoxica. The Xilinx® programmable logic device applications interface for VxWorks environments (PAVE) allows FPGAs to be reprogrammed in deployed products. Wind River also resells DK1 developed by Celoxica - a "C-to-hardware" design suite that enables direct C-to-hardware synthesis - through the Wind River Direct™ program.
"This is an important platform for software developers wanting to explore a new approach to dramatically improving system performance without a steep learning curve," said Dennis Nye, senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing, Celoxica. "We are delighted to support this initiative to overcome CPU bottlenecks by expressing software algorithms in closely-coupled parallel hardware. DK1, our direct C-to-gates design suite, shields Wind River customers wanting to target FPGAs from traditional aspects of the hardware design process."
Availability
The SBC 405GP reference design is available immediately, as are all other Wind River products previously mentioned.
About Wind River
Wind River is a worldwide leader in embedded software and services for creating connected smart devices. Wind River provides software development tools, real-time operating systems, and advanced connectivity software for use in products throughout the Internet, telecommunications and data communications, digital imaging, digital consumer electronics, networking, medical, computer peripherals, automotive, industrial automation and control, and aerospace/defense markets. Wind River is How Smart Things Think™. Founded in 1983, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California, with operations worldwide.
Wind River Systems, the Wind River Systems logo, VxWorks, and Tornado are registered trademarks, and How Smart Things Think are trademarks of Wind River Systems, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.
Contact Information
Jessica Miller
Global Corporate Communications