Read the latest news from the 2008 Embedded Systems Conference, Silicon Valley

Synplicity has introduced a device-independent intellectual property (IP) configuration and system-level assembly environment for FPGA design.

The aim with the tool, which is called System Designer, is to allow users to select, configure and assemble internal and third-party IP delivered in the IP-XACT format, integrate that IP and then implement it into a variety of FPGA vendor devices, including those from Actel, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor and Xilinx. 

Announced today at the Embedded System Conference in San Jose, System Designer is a component of Synplicity’s ReadyIP Initiative, that allows users to evaluate and “try-before-they-buy” IP within their designs using the company's synthesis tools.
 
“FPGAs have evolved into system-implementation vehicles by virtue of the increased density, speed, dedicated resources and the time-to market advantages that the latest generation of programmable devices provides,” said Angela Sutton, senior product marketing manager, Synplicity. 

“The System Designer capability answers customers’ needs for system-level implementation tools by allowing them, for the first time, to access IP from a range of vendors, evaluate the IP in the context of their design and then easily implement the system in their choice of FPGA,” Sutton added.

The tool is built on the open source Eclipse standard and will allow users of the company's Synplify Pro and Synplify Premier design software to maintain and deploy internally developed system-level building blocks and components which have been converted to the IP-XACT format, and then re-use them across multiple designs and multiple generations of FPGA designs.

The System Designer tool accepts as input IP, which complies with the SPIRIT Consortium’s IP-XACT standard for describing IP, and outputs top-level RTL and a Synplify project file ready for synthesizing the complete design.
Third-party IP is available to System Designer users via Web browser access integrated into Synplicity’s synthesis products.