ARC + QLGC = RAD
Jerry Alston, vice president of engineering at QLogic, said, "We have had our own embedded processor for the past ten years. When we reviewed requirements for our next generation products, we selected the ARCtangent-A4 for our product line because of its small size, speed, and the development tools available with the processor."
ARCtangent-A4:
arccores.com
The Tangent-A4 Processor Core
Overview
The Tangent architecture allows the ASIC designer to configure and extend the capabilities of the processor; it has a variety of advantages over conventional approaches. The Tangent is a flexible 32-bit processor architecture that provides a fast design solution for embedded processor based ASICs. The Tangent is provided as a synthesizable "soft macro" with a suite of tools for configuration and hardware-software co-design. The Tangent architecture can be configured to meet the exact requirements of a specific application, enabling your design to meet challenging power consumption, performance, and cost targets.
The Tangent-A4 processor allows you to architect optimal solutions for a chosen application. You can achieve performance gains by adding a custom instruction or interface. You can use custom instructions to provide a programmable solution to replace a hard-wired accelerator solution, enabling you or your customers to quickly address new markets with simple software upgrades. This design flexibility means you can differentiate your product, unlike with a traditional fixed architecture that mandates many design decisions.
Unlike traditional 'embedded' processors that were originally intended as discrete components for PCB, the Tangent was designed from the ground up to be an optimal processor for SoC designs. As a result, integrating a Tangent into your SoC can be much faster than with other processors, usually taking a few days rather than the months associated with hardcores. As a soft macro, the Tangent frees you from dependence on a specific foundry, enabling you to find the most cost effective vendor. You can also quickly take advantage of new manufacturing technologies with a simple re-synthesis instead of the lengthy and expensive process required to port a hard macro.
Many designs currently use both a microprocessor core and a DSP core. The Tangent enables you to use a single architecture for both requirements. You can either combine both functions on to a single core or configure separate Tangent-A4 processors, one as a microcontroller and one as a DSP. In either case, you only need to learn one set of tools and there is no requirement to interface two incompatible bus architectures. You can also make substantial savings in licensing and manufacturing costs per unit by using the Tangent-A4 for both the CPU & DSP functions.
The Tangent-A4 processor is fully supported by a comprehensive set of development tools for both software and hardware development. These include the ARChitect, a graphical environment that enables 'point-and-click' configuration of the processor in minutes. There is no need to manually modify HDL code, as is the case with purely synthesizable processors. |
