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The road ahead: Exclusive 2004 Altium technology preview By Bruce Edwards, Executive Director, Altium Sydney Altium is pleased to present EDANEWS readers with an exclusive preview of its 2004 range of products. At the core of this new product range is the concept of LiveDesign. For the first time since the era of breadboarding designers can experience real-time interaction with their designs. This concept, together with the decreasing cost of FPGAs, is poised to deliver advanced FPGA-based system development to mainstream engineers. As things stand, about 40% of PCB designers indicate they are creating boards that include FPGAs, and this number looks set to rise steeply in the next couple of years judging by their planned increase in FPGA design tool usage*. Programmable logic is not only claiming an increasing amount of PCB real estate but the role that programmable design is playing within both product development and the end-products themselves is also changing. While programmable devices have traditionally been relegated to support functions, such as providing configurable glue logic for on-board controllers or processors, the range of applications for these devices is increasing rapidly. Two powerful factors are now driving change throughout the electronics industry. The first factor is the barrier now imposed by ASIC development and tooling costs. The once rapid proliferation of specialized devices has slowed dramatically as geometries have shrunk to a level where engineering and market risks are competing with the benefit of lower unit cost, except for the largest volume applications. It's been estimated that a wholesale market worth at least US$20M is now required for designs to be implemented on 90nm/300mm wafer silicon. Tooling spins for this technology run from a low of about US$750K up to US$2M. It's no wonder then that only about 20% of existing ASIC designs would qualify to move onto this platform. Against this background, the same geometries that are creating prohibitive ASIC development costs are providing a breakthrough in FPGA price/performance. An emerging volume market for programmable devices is accelerating the development and delivery of larger capacity FPGAs at dramatically lower prices. FPGAs are now available at prices that make them a viable platform for mainstream market products. And the increasing capacity of these new-generation, low-cost FPGAs make them an advantaged platform for developing and deploying processor-based, systems-level designs. As product designers, we all still operate under the same constraints as in the past. We're under pressure to make our products smaller, smarter, faster and better able to communicate. Improved FPGAs provide an obvious alternative systems- development platform without the astronomical NRE and tooling costs imposed by ASICs. The programmability (and potential reconfigurability) of these devices could provide other benefits, both during the design process and even after delivery. This all sounds great in theory but unless you're part of a large, resource-rich R&D environment, how do you assemble the tools and expertise required to exploit this potential 'systems-level' design capability? At Altium we have been asking ourselves this same question over the past several years. We've watched industry trends and anticipated what we felt was the ultimate convergence of hardware and software design. We've invested mightily in embedded software and FPGA design technologies we felt would be vital to supporting this convergence. And we've been developing a new approach to making this highly complex set of hardware and software design processes both usable and affordable for our mainstream customers. What has emerged from this process is a new paradigm for hardware/software systems implementation that we call "LiveDesign". LiveDesign is the embodiment of what we believe mainstream engineers will need in next-gen tools in order to be able to develop their future products. In the simplest terms, LiveDesign-enabled tools support real-time communication and interaction between the designer and the design. By LiveDesign system we mean a hands-on hardware and software environment directly accessible from their desktop for on-the-fly implementation of a real, physical circuit. Once implemented, this circuit can be probed, analyzed and debugged just like an actual prototype. And because the implementation is performed on an FPGA, the designer can update the design in an instant and many times over without penalty. This working hardware implementation of the physical design also provides a development platform for debugging embedded system software. Unlike conventional electronics design flows where hardware must be frozen early and prototypes manufactured to provide the platform for software development, LiveDesign enables the commitment to final hardware to be delayed until later in the design cycle. We believe this will have a profound impact on the way future products are designed, with benefits to the speed, design flow, quality and final product cost for the design phase. Delivering the benefits of LiveDesign-enabled products LiveDesign itself isn't a product, but rather a set of capabilities that will be delivered across Altium's entire range of design solutions, and is enabled by our unique DXP technology integration platform. Commencing in the first quarter of 2004, we will roll out a new generation of LiveDesign-enabled tools to customers. Following is a brief overview of the new product line-up. * 2003 EETimes Electronic Design Automation Branding Study. NEXAR 2004 Nexar is the first true Personal ASIC Development System - and a radical departure from previous industry attempts to provide systems-level design capabilities for FPGAs. Nexar will allow you to quickly develop, program and debug a complete FPGA-hosted, target-independent, processor-based system without having to write a single line of VHDL or Verilog. Nexar is delivered with a library of industry-standard processors, controllers and peripheral IP cores. These pre-synthesized IP-based components can be placed directly into schematics and wired together to create your design. Because the components are pre-synthesized, downloading your design to the FPGA-powered development board - the NanoBoard - is quick and reliable, freeing you to explore more design options in less time. An important part of our philosophy is multi-vendor support. Nexar's royalty-free component libraries support an extensive range of devices including FPGA-based processor cores, communications and interface devices, generic logic components, 'virtual instruments' and more. This allows portability of the design between devices from different vendors and different device families. And although Nexar designs are developed and debugged on the reprogrammable FPGA NanoBoard, the completed design itself can be ultimately targeted for implementation on other programmable devices, board-level discrete components or even as factory ASIC devices. Another key feature of the Nexar environment is its high level of integration with board-level design. Nexar provides special tools that manage optimization and routing of FPGA pins to enhance layout flexibility on the PCB. The initial release of Nexar 2004 will include both the Xilinx Spartan IIE and the Altera Cyclone EP1C12 devices supplied on plugin daughterboards. The anticipated list price of Nexar is US$7,995 and will be available for purchase in the first quarter of the 2004 calendar year. "FPGA technology has progressed to the point where these devices represent a viable platform for embedded system design accessible to the mainstream engineering community" Nick Martin Nexar key highlights: Rapid system-on-FPGA development environment that includes integrated hardware and embedded software development (true co-design) functionality; FPGA-loaded NanoBoard hardware that provides real time interaction with the design during hardware and software debugging. For the design of complex systems, multiple NanoBoards can also be 'daisy-chained' together to support multiple FPGA devices spread across several printed circuit boards; Graphical design interface that supports both large blocks of combinatorial logic or components, and the interconnection of these component blocks to form a complete embedded system inside an FPGA; Pre-synthesized component libraries including standard architecture processors, controllers and peripherals. These IP cores are provided as part of the standard Nexar package and can be used on a royalty-free basis in your designs; VHDL-based design support for creating pre-synthesized peripheral components; Embedded compilers and debuggers for pre-synthesized IP cores; Virtual Instruments, including signal analyzers and frequency generators/counters, that can be wired into the design schematic and operated live with NanoBoard hardware via the system's JTAG interface for both hardware and software device chains. Design Explorer 2004 Design Explorer 2004 represents the addition of a dedicated new product licensing option that provides engineering teams with a universal front-end design platform featuring hierarchical schematic capture, mixed-mode simulation and pre-layout signal integrity capabilities. Beyond today's mere 'capture' products, Design Explorer is a richly featured entry point into Altium's LiveDesign-enabled environment. Design Explorer provides a low-cost option for team members who are not completing device-level or board level implementations of projects. Teams will benefit from the seamless integration that connects Design Explorer and other Altium LiveDesign-enabled tools. Furthermore a Design Explorer license will be readily and easily upgradeable to other Altium products. Anticipated list price of Design Explorer 2004 in the US will be $1,995*. Current CircuitMaker users will be offered upgrade paths to Design Explorer. Design Explorer 2004 is expected to ship during the first calendar quarter of 2004. Caption: Design Explorer provides the ultimate front end to board-level design with hierarchical schematic capture, full SPICE3f5/Xspice simulation capabilities, and comprehensive file import features for bringing in legacy designs Protel 2004 Protel 2004 will be fully LiveDesign-enabled and completely integrated with Nexar. Protel remains as the EDA industry's first and only single application that provides all the capabilities needed to take any board design project from concept to completion. Protel 2004 includes the full host of design capabilities that span design capture to board-level implementation, further strengthened by including, as standard, new integrated capabilities for FPGA pin optimization. Protel 2004 works seamlessly with Nexar to provide a smooth path from FPGA design to PCB implementation with Protel PCB designs linked directly to Nexar FPGA projects. Protel 2004 builds on its predecessors' approach to board design by giving engineers unprecedented freedom to move between the different phases of design, working with familiar design flows. This new release will incorporate the previously announced Service Pack 3 fixes and significant Situs autorouter improvements. The anticipated list price for a single-user Protel 2004 new license remains at $7,995* in the US. It is planned for shipment in Q1, 2004. Current Protel DXP users will receive this new version automatically and an offer to purchase a NanoBoard for an additional fee. Upgrade paths to Nexar will be provided with pricing to be announced closer to the time of release. nVisage 2004 An updated, LiveDesign-enabled nVisage 2004 release will provide a dramatically strengthened environment for dedicated FPGA design. The current nVisage capabilities, including multi-vendor support, VHDL simulation and synthesis capabilities are maintained and the new LiveDesign-enabled capabilities will support the use of Virtual Instruments and FPGA-based cores. All new licenses for nVisage 2004 will be delivered with a NanoBoard for rapid, implementation, testing and debugging of your FPGA design. nVisage will also include non-processor pre-synthesized components and virtual instruments to support NanoBoard hardware debug. This LiveDesignenabled version of nVisage will be readily upgraded to a full Nexar license, adding support for IP-core based processors, controllers and the compilers/debuggers required for embedded software implementation. Anticipated nVisage 2004 new license list price moves to $4,995* in the US and it will be upgradeable to the full Nexar license. nVisage 2004 is also expected to ship during the first quarter of the 2004 calendar year. Current holders of a single-user license of nVisage DXP will receive the 2004 software update automatically and will be offered the option to add a reconfigurable NanoBoard - pricing to be announced nearer to the time of release. P-CAD 2004 Next year, P-CAD 2004 will also be delivered on Altium's LiveDesign-enabled technology platform giving users access, for the first time, to our entire range of integrated design technologies. This will allow P-CAD users to benefit from Altium tool integration within the specialized world of PCB design and beyond. P-CAD users will experience the power of a significantly upgraded front-end design capture engine tightly integrated with their traditional and familiar P-CAD PCB interface. Once wired into the LiveDesign-enabled environment, P-CAD customers will be able to extend their tools across the entire Altium landscape by easily adding FPGA and system-level design capabilities. Anticipated list price of P-CAD in the US remains at $9,995*. Delivery of P-CAD 2004 is expected by mid-2004. TASKING 2004 Did you know that approximately 40% of embedded software developers indicate they're involved in systems-level hardware design?* What if it were possible to debug your embedded programs on the intended hardware platform as it is being developed? What if you could easily retarget and debug your embedded code on a reconfigurable development platform that supports soft cores? And say you could change the hardware the software runs on as easily as you update the software code itself? All this (and more) will soon be possible as our well-established TASKING tools are progressively released on Altium's LiveDesignenabled platform over the coming months. Altium will continue to provide embedded developers with targeted compiler/debugger 'tool chains' that will support embedded development for FPGAs on our Nexar system-on- FPGA development product. Embedded developers will also benefit from Altium's highly productive design capture/edit environment by gaining close integration with other system design flows. A succession of TASKING tool-set releases will commence with new versions for 8051 variants, with other processor targets to follow. This will also provide a logical access point to the rest of the LiveDesign-enabled environment for Altium's embedded development customers and benefits for engineering project teams. Anticipated list prices for TASKING embedded software development toolsets remain in the current range from $1,995* to $5,995* in the US depending upon the target devices supported. Further information on the release schedule will be provided in Q1, 2004. * VDC Embedded Software Market Intelligence 2002/2003 CAMtastic 2004 CAMtastic will be re-released on Altium's LiveDesign-enabled platform and also included 'as standard' with Protel 2004 and P-CAD 2004 PCB design solutions. The free web pack Viewer version with OBD++ support will remain available to allow customers to distribute their layout and other fabrication files. Anticipated list price for a stand-alone CAMtastic 2004 single-user license in the US is $2,995* and delivery is scheduled for Q1, 2004. Learn more about being LiveDesign-enabled Finally, it's impossible to capture more than a superficial impression of the LiveDesign-enabled concept in print. If you'd like to see our new technology and Nexar in action, we've prepared a short introductory multi-media presentation, "Designing Live with Nexar" that can be viewed at the Altium website. Just point your browser to: www.altium.com/nexar. As Nexar and the other LiveDesign-enabled Altium products are released, we will continue to provide further information on the Altium website so be sure to visit regularly for up-dates. If you have an interest in beta programs for Altium's 2004 releases, go to www.altium.com/beta for more information. Or, to contact your nearest Altium sales and support office, visit www.altium.com. Clearly, we've mapped out an exciting and ambitious schedule of technology deliveries for the upcoming year. As you've seen, every current Altium product will soon be released with our LiveDesign-enabling capabilities, providing a true system-level approach to design regardless of your entry point into the Altium environment. We believe that whether you're a board designer, system engineer, FPGA designer or embedded software developer, being LiveDesign-enabled will provide compelling benefits for you, your organization and your customers. * All prices quoted in US Dollars - contact your local Altium Sales and Support Center or Reseller for local pricing. 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