volume 2 — issue 2
May 15, 2003

Time for DAC

As we prepare to head to Anaheim for yet another Design Automation Conference, I can't help but reflect on one of the most objective measures of CAST's success: longevity.

Realizing that this is the 8th DAC counting CAST as an exhibitor does make me feel a bit old – I prefer to call it experienced! – but mostly it makes me proud of the team we've assembled and happy for the customers we've helped.

And time, of course, matters more than just about anything else – in product development, business success, or even life itself – and we think that's the greatest single benefit we can offer.

• Hal Barbour, President

Visit CAST in Anaheim

For DAC this year, we'll be introducing two new microcontroller cores developed by our partner Fraunhofer IPMS: the C6805 and the C6811.

Our C6805 core is based on Motorola's 68HC05, one of the most popular 8-bit microcontrollers in the world. The C6811 is based on Motorola's 8-bit 68HC11, the also-popular "bigger brother" of the 6805, with a more powerful register architecture and greater capabilities. These two cores join our already-broad processor portfolio, which includes cores for the 8051, Z80, 68000, 80186, and more.

One of our booth demos should be fun: to demonstrate the C6805 we've implemented it in a Xilinx part serving as the controller for a model train set!

We'll also have various multimedia and interface core demos, and two demos of reference designs using Avalon boards from our partner Avnet: the JPEG 2000 reference design board lets you experiment with the many options of this advanced new image compression algorithm before committing to a chip, and our 8051 development platform board combines an 8051 processor with an Ethernet MAC and several communication and bus interface cores so you can experiment to determine the best configuration for your particular application.

If you're coming to DAC, please be sure to stop by our booth (number 1528) to learn more about our recently announced cores like the MPEG-4 and USB 2.0, and to hear about our latest programs with partners Actel, Altera, Xilinx, Lattice, and others.

Even better, get more time and information with a meeting in our private demo suite (number 868). Just use this meeting reservation form, or call Sales at (508)655-9928 to schedule a convenient time.

A successful DATE experience

Thanks to the many design engineers and project managers who stopped by our booth at DATE in Munich. We had a good reception to the 1-Gigabit MAC and USB 2.0 cores we announced there, and considerable interest in our Avnet Avalon JPEG 2000 reference design board demo.

Hopefully if you visited you got to meet Chris Sheldon, the new VP of European Operations who joined CAST last Fall. If you have any further questions about CAST cores in Europe, please reach Chris at eurosales@cast-inc.com.

top

Time for DAC

Visit CAST in Anaheim

A Successful DATE Experience

IP tip: evaluating CAST cores

unsubscribe

     Even though our cores are generally silicon-proven – and customers have integrated several dozens of times – we understand the risk you feel when using someone else's design work in your own system.
      If you're using Altera technology, then the OpenCore program is quite attractive for evaluating cores. Visit the OpenCore page for more information, or go right to our OpenCore request form.
      A more general method is for us to generate a compiled RTL version of the core of interest. This works well for simulation — it runs fast and you can easily change the testbench — but you can't synthesize to your specific library to check area and performance results.
      For several customers with significant projects, we've had good success producing an FPGA with built-in time-out code. We create this for your targeted FPGA, you load it in, and it runs in full production mode until the programmed time expires. This lets you verify the core's size and performance in an actual hardware system (but is rather time consuming for us to produce).
      Possibly the best evaluation aid is a reference design board that incorporates the core(s) you're planning to use. Several such boards are available from CAST and third-party sources — including Avnet, Microtronix, and Xess — and we're working to bring you more in the near future.
      IP evaluation is a challenging aspect of the business, and we'll soon be adding more info on our web site and in future newsletter issue. Meanwhile, please contact Sales and discuss your particular evaluation needs.

To unsubscribe, choose the text version, or change your profile: click here.
Feel free to pass this along to anyone interested; they can subscribe at our newsletter page.

Time for DAC

Visit CAST in Anaheim

A successful DATE experience

In this issue …

IP tip: evaluating CAST cores

feedback

IP tip:
evaluating CAST cores