January 24, 2005 -- Actel Corp. has announced the availability of 90 intellectual property (IP) cores to support its new ProASIC3 and ProASIC3/E device families introduced today. The ported cores leverage the advanced features of the ProASIC3/E devices, including 66 MHz 64-bit PCI performance, on-chip user flash memory, enhanced I/O and memory, and secure in-system programmability (ISP). Delivering a broad IP library at the time of product introduction enables Actel's customers to begin designing complete systems with the ProASIC3/E devices immediately.

"Our new ProASIC3 and ProASIC3E devices deliver very low cost and high performance," said Yankin Tanurhan, senior director, applications and IP solutions at Actel. "With 90 IP cores and a host of value-added design services offered through our Solution Partner Program, customers can accelerate time to market and minimize design costs and risks for ProASIC3/E designs immediately."

Actel has ported more than 20 of its DirectCores to the ProASIC3/E devices, including CorePCI and CoreDDR, a DDR SDRAM memory controller that utilizes the DDR-capable I/Os on the ProASIC3E devices. Actel's CompanionCore partners have ported nearly 70 cores. All DirectCores and CompanionCores come complete as pre-implemented, synthesizable building blocks and have been thoroughly tested and verified in Actel FPGAs. Together, the DirectCores and CompanionCores span a variety of markets including telecommunications, consumer multimedia, networking, industrial control, encryption, automotive, military/aerospace and computing.

The 90 optimized DirectCore and CompanionCore solutions offered today include:

10/100 and Gigabit Ethernet MAC controllers; Packet-Over-SONET, HDLC controllers; and PL3 and Utopia Level 3 interfaces for use in communications applications, such as wireless LANs, xDSL, SONET/SDH and DWDM. 8051, Z80 and 6809 8-bit MCUs; Serial Communication, SPI, I2C, SDLC; and CAN and USB controllers for use in a variety of embedded systems applications. SDR and DDR memory controllers; forward error correction (FEC) technology, such as Reed Solomon encoders and decoders; a digital video broadcast (DVB) modulator, and encryption cores for use in consumer multimedia and personal security devices.

IP vendors supporting the new ProASIC3/E families are 4i2i, CAST, Inc., Eurekatech, Helion, Inicore, Intelliga Integrated Design, and MorethanIP.

Pricing and Availability

Actel DirectCore IP prices start at $500 and the cores can be ordered through Actel's sales offices. Free evaluations are available for download from Actel's Web site. Actel CompanionCore products can be ordered directly from the partner. All cores are offered with a free evaluation version so a designer can review the features of the IP without risk. Actel DirectCores and CompanionCores are available as RTL, netlist and evaluation versions and include a software testbench.