December 2007

Synplify DSP Now Supports LatticeECP2M and LatticeXP2 FPGAs

A powerful solution for DSP algorithm implementation in aerospace, wireless, telecom and digital multimedia applications.

Lattice and Synplicity, Inc., a leading supplier of innovative IC design and verification solutions, have expanded design tools support to include a highly optimized, non-proprietary ESL synthesis flow for DSP design. Synplicity's Synplify® DSP software now supports the LatticeECP2M and LatticeXP2 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices.

The Synplify DSP software, Synplicity's ESL synthesis platform, offers:

• High-level modeling and hardware abstraction
• Constraint-driven algorithm synthesis into RTL and powerful system-wide optimizations for performance
• Area and multi-channelization tradeoff exploration

Designers can perform architectural exploration across multiple Lattice devices and create algorithmic IP that is highly portable and reusable, so users can easily map their DSP algorithms into any computing platform. This also gives users of The MathWorks Simulink® environment, for multi-domain simulation and model-based design, a new target vendor for their FPGA designs: Lattice.

M-Control is fully integrated into the Synplify DSP library and The MathWorks Simulink environment, data type and sample rate inheritance and propagation are fully supported. M-Control features inline debugging for supporting breakpoints and stepping into the M code. These features greatly simplify the specification and verification of control functionality that is often integrated into DSP algorithms. Moreover, with a comprehensive IP library of industry-standard functional blocks, such as FFTs, Viterbi decoders, DDS and CORDIC math functions, mutual users of Lattice and Synplicity products can now create designs rapidly in application-specific domains.

Synplify DSP is also well suited for wireless algorithm design, so Lattice users can develop FPGA-based applications for digital RF/IF processing, FEC (forward error correction) and digital multimedia (audio and video) encryption, as well as high-performance computing. Vector support in Synplify DSP dramatically reduces the effort needed to create multi-channel wireless algorithms and multi-antenna algorithms such as MIMO, video, radar and security applications. These features enable users to rapidly describe, verify and implement complex wireless algorithms (such as WiMAX, 802.11 a/b/g/n and DVB standards) into hardware devices.

For high-performance DSP applications, Lattice devices provide up to a 50 percent performance and 75 percent logic utilization improvement over other solutions when implementing common DSP functions. Through advanced 90 nm silicon technology, an optimized architecture and proprietary circuit design, Lattice devices reduce total solution costs by up to 30-50 percent compared to other FPGA solutions. It is believed that these distinct advantages will promote the adoption of FPGAs within the $20 billion ASIC marketplace.

To Learn More

Synplify DSP, offering support for Lattice devices, is available now directly from Synplicity. For more information visit the Synplicity website.