Key Benefits of Lattice Software Tools

In the electronics industry, time-to-market is invaluable. Learn how Lattice software tools like Lattice Propel™, Lattice Diamond™, and Lattice Radiant™ enable customers to bring their products to market faster.

Today’s electronics industry is tremendously competitive. Electronic systems are more common than ever in both consumer and commercial products across a range of markets and applications. Further complicating the landscape is the growing need for hardware flexibility. As product designs go through various iterations, hardware re-programmability becomes incredibly valuable.

Adaptability has become a game-changer for designers who have realized that as use cases and devices rapidly evolve, so too must their underlying technology. Engineers must consider adaptability at the design phase so their products can be easily updated post-deployment and ensure designs remain relevant as this rapid pace of innovation continues. These industry conditions have made Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) tremendously desirable. As the low power programmable leader, Lattice Semiconductor is focused on creating the world’s most energy efficient FPGAs for today’s fastest growing technology applications.

In fact, the advantages of Lattice FPGAs go beyond the best-in-class capabilities of our hardware. Lattice is committed to providing software tools like Lattice Radiant, Lattice Diamond, and Lattice Propel that make developing FPGA-based designs both easy and efficient.

Lattice Propel is a design environment offering a complete set of graphical and command-line tools to create, analyze, compile, and debug both the hardware design of an FPGA-based system and the software design for that system. The Propel Builder component provides tools to integrate processors and peripheral IP, while Propel SDK is a seamless software development kit with an integrated industry-standard integrated development environment (IDE) and toolchain along with the software libraries and board support packages for Propel Builder systems.

Lattice Radiant is a full-featured easy-to-use tool suite that enables fast design starts and precise implementation through power and intuitive tools. Radiant provides powerful optimization and analysis to help achieve fast and predictable design convergence. It brings ease-of-use to a whole new level with a graphical user interface that is modular and wizard driven, and intuitively guides the user through the design flow that includes design creation, synthesis, constraint entry, design analysis, debugging, and programming.

Lattice Diamond features leading-edge design software optimized for exploration among general FPGA families for pressure testing and evaluating multiple solutions within a single project. Diamond offers an optimized and tailored design and verification environment for Lattice FPGAs, featuring advanced optimization, accurate analysis, extensive verification, and fast iterative functionality.

Read on to learn how this unique toolset provides unparalleled advantages for your next design.

Intuitive Design Experience

All Lattice software tools provide a graphical, drag-and-drop user interface that is wizard-driven to perceptively guide users through easy design flows. Steps include design creation, synthesis, constraint entry, design analysis, debugging, and programming. Put simply, the modular design experience reduces functional complexity and helps designers reduce time-to-market.

Lattice software tools also inspire designer and embedded software developer confidence because of their use of multi-functional industry-standard design methodologies. For example, Radiant uses SDC format files which are used throughout the FPGA industry to constrain designs. Propel SDK uses industry-standard Eclipse-based tools. Also, Lattice synthesis tools have extensive design entry language coverage, which covers all of the standard supported languages used for FPGAs such as VHDL, Verilog, and System Verilog. Additionally, they use industry-standard language parsers for easy design transition when moving away from other tools.

Predictable Convergence

Intelligent planning is embedded in the Lattice software toolset, meaning designers can customize how things are implemented to fit their needs - making sure pins are placed correctly, showing where blocks will be located and optimized, and so on. Such advanced optimization gives designers the ability to get the best timing and area utilization for their devices.

Additionally, accurate analysis capabilities ensure total visibility into a design by giving users reports on whether results were achieved or not. Propel, Radiant, and Diamond show timing diagrams, power calculators, routing matrices, physical layout, and congestion. The tools can even display where congestion occurs in the design and enable modifications.

Extensive Real-time Debugging

The Lattice software toolset also provides real-time, on-chip debugging capabilities to help designers problem solve for flaws in their system mid-development. Each tool provides probes into the hardware to look at individual design nodes, to target problems, or to instrument the design by putting in monitors, flags, or LEDs to see how signals toggle and ensure workability. As such, users can quickly fix and reprogram devices within the software, as needed, to iterate quickly and speed time to market.

End-to-end Security

Cybersecurity and cyber resilience are top of mind for designers across all applications. The frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks today are steadily increasing, so designers must ensure devices are secure from bad actors. To help achieve this, Lattice provides best-in-class security features across the entire suite.

Lattice FPGAs provide the means to ensure the security of valuable IP contained in the configuration bitstream as well as providing hardened security functions for use at run-time. By digitally signing all software products, installation includes a certified declaration that Lattice is a trusted, reliable source.

Lattice offers an array of resources to help developers get started with the software toolset. Visit our website for licensing support, reference designs, and more. Check out our YouTube channel for our latest video series on how to implement the Lattice Radiant design software.

Learn how you can outpace market expectations with Lattice solutions by reaching out to us today!