November 2008

Lattice Listens

Q: Is there a Development Kit for version 3.3 of the LatticeECP2M PCI Express IP Core? Which platforms does the Development Kit support?  

A: A revised LatticeECP2M PCI Express Development Kit supporting version 3.3 of the LatticeECP2M PCI Express IP core is now available for purchase. The Kit includes:

• LatticeECP2M PCI Express x1 / x4 Solutions Board - This board contains both x1 and x4 PCI Express edge fingers. It has been extensively tested for compliance and inter-operability, including participation in the PCI SIG September 2008 compliance testing.
• PCI Express Development Kit documentation to quickly bring up your LatticeECP2M PCI Express implementation for your system.
• Several demostration bitstreams to graphically demonstrate PCI Express functionalities and applications.
  - Basic Demo - Shows the board functions as a simple memory endpoint
  - PCI Express Throughput Demo - Demonstrates and measures bandwidth efficiency for transfers between the PC and the board
  - Several Scatter-Gather DMA Demos - Shows simple and large block transfer between the solution board and the PC memory
• LatticeECP2M PCI Express Resource CD. The CD contains software drivers for all demo GUIs, software source code, IP and kit documentation, demo bitstreams, and demo project directories complete with source code and step-by-step instructions for rebuilding the bitstreams.

The LatticeECP2M PCI Express Development Kit supports the Windows and Linux operating systems. The Resource CD contains an installer for Windows XP and a tar file for Linux support.