Related Information
News Releases
CAST’s Talos Evaluation Kits Help Designers Choose the Best Microcontroller/Processor IP Cores, 04/26/12
CAST Releases Royalty-Free 32-bit BA22 Processor Cores for Embedded Systems, 07/28/11
CAST Complements Popular 8051 Family with New 32-bit Processor Core Partnership, 06/03/11
Articles
"The BA22 family, according to CAST vice-president of marketing Nikos Zervas, is what you’d get if you started out with a clean sheet of paper, without constraints from a decades-old instruction-set architecture, and with the latest thinking in compact, low-power design. In this scenario you would have few enough constraints to produce some pretty impressive results."
CAST announces royalty-free BA22 32-bit RISC IP
EE Times,
Ron Wilson, 8/3/2011
32-bit Design Seminar
A New 32-bit Choice: Using the BA22 Processor Core in Deeply Embedded Systems or as a Full Application Processor
Participants learned about developing BA22-based systems and saw product demos in this free breakfast seminar at DesignCon 2012. View the presentation slides and more >
Customer Experiences
"We went from licensing the BA22 processor [to] tape-out in just 5 months," said Ram Rangarajan, VP of Imaging Products at inSilica. "... Despite our stringent requirements, integration and software development was straightforward. "
— inSilica Announces Tape-Out of Its Next Generation Camera Processor With BA22 Embedded RISC processor, Dec. 10, 2009
Processor IP Core BA2232-bit Processor Family IP Cores
Key Stats
Performance: up to 1.59 DMIPS/MHz
400 MHz on 65nm-LP
2.31 Coremarks/MHz
(for basic BA22DE with no caches or MMUs)
Power usage:
from 0.02 mW/MHz
Area: from 15k
Code density:
best in class
The BA22 Processor is the second generation of the advanced RISC 32 bit architecture sourced from Beyond Semiconductor.
This design sets new standards for minimum code size, gate and flip-flop count while achieving best in class computing performance. The processor is extremely configurable, allowing for variety of size/performance trade-offs.
The BA22 Processor Family includes a set of royalty-free, pre-configured products intended for different applications:
- BA22-DE 32-bit Deeply Embedded Processor, for deeply embedded applications that use on-chip instruction and data memories.
- BA22-EM 32-bit Embedded Processor, for deeply embedded applications that use off-chip instruction and data memories and that may need to run a real-time operating system (RTOS).
- BA22-AP Application Processor, for demanding embedded applications that use
off-chip instruction and data memories and that may need to run a real-time operating
system (RTOS) or a full operating system such as Linus or Android.
Additional microcontroller peripherals may be ordered for pre-integration and delivery with each BA22 core, individually or in a complete BA22 Platform. CAST also offers IP Integration Services to help integrate any BA22 processor core with memory controllers, image compression, or other CAST IP cores.
BA22 Software Development
A comprehensive set of programming tools is included free with each BA22 processor core. This includes:
- A complete GNU Tool Chain for Windows or Linux
- A cycle-accurate Instruction Set Simulator (ISS)
- JTAG Debugging
- Ported C libraries and OSs
- Software build tools for Eclipse (BeyondStudio), with ISS and JTAG Debugging
The BA22 family is also supported by the powerful TRACE32 software development tools from Lauterbach.
The BA22-EM Embedded Processor supports real-time operating systems, including FreeOTOS, eCos, and µcLinux.
The BA22-AP Application Processor also supports the Android and Linux full operating systems.
BA22 Development Kits
Two development kits are available for evaluation or getting a quick start on system development.
The Talos-1 Development Kit supports the BA22-DE Deeply Embedded processor. It includes:
- The Altera DE0-Nano Board, running essential IP:
- BA22-DE core, 64KB memory , FPU Integer Multiplier and Divider, 16 GPRs, PIC, TT, UART, I2C, SPI, and GPIO
- Sample Applications
- Beyond Studio IDE for Eclipse JTAG or ISS Debugging
The Raptor Development Kit supports the BA22-EM and Ba22-AP processors. It features:
- Xilinx ML501 Board
- BA22-Based Platform:
- has 256MB DDR2 & 256MB Flash
- integrates UART, I2C, GPIO, PS/2, AC97 Audio Controller, VGA Controller, and 10/100/1000 eMAC
- Runs Linux
- Has sample applications
- Uses either Beyond Studio IDE or PowerView
Block Diagrams
Three preconfigured versions are available, as well as a complete, pre-integrated system platform.
BA22-DE 32-bit Deeply Embedded 32-bit Processor Core
BA22-EM 32-bit Embedded Processor Core
BA22-AP 32-bit Application Processor Core for Embedded Systems
PIP-BA22 Platform
The PIP-BA22 Pre-Integrated Platform IP offers a wide range of peripherals available as a complete bundle or separately.
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