Mentor Graphics Supports Xilinx Virtex-5 SXT FPGAs

WILSONVILLE, Ore. - Mentor Graphics Corporation has announced that its suite of advanced synthesis products supports the newly introduced Virtex™-5 SXT field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) from Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX). Synthesis support for Virtex-5 SXT FPGAs is available in Precision® Synthesis, release 2006a Update 2. Support within the LeonardoSpectrum™ tool suite will follow.

Designed to address the ultra-high DSP bandwidth and lower system cost requirements of next-generation wireless and video applications, the Virtex-5 SXT family expands the Xilinx XtremeDSP™ offering with three new devices. “Virtex-5 SXT greatly expands the Xilinx DSP capabilities, providing solutions for designs that previously required an ASIC or ASSP,” said Simon Bloch, general manager, Mentor Graphics Design Creation and Synthesis Division. “With the large number of DSP and memory blocks available in this new family, Virtex-5 SXT designers will need the sophisticated control capabilities found within Precision Synthesis and other Mentor DSP-related tools.”

The companies began work last year on Virtex-5 SXT FPGA support within the Mentor Graphics family of synthesis tools. “Complex FPGAs and designs require much more than push-button solutions,” said Sandeep Vij, vice president of world-wide marketing for Xilinx. “With its capabilities of analyzing and managing large, complex designs and advanced FPGA architectures, Precision Synthesis is the perfect match for our new Virtex-5 family.”

Precision Synthesis forms the centerpiece of Mentor Graphics’ FPGA flow — the industry’s most comprehensive vendor-independent solution for FPGA design. With advanced support for ASIC prototyping (support for DesignWare® libraries, SDC constraints, gated-clock handling, etc.) plus advanced implementation and optimization techniques such as automatic mapping and inferencing of dedicated DSP and RAM blocks, Precision Synthesis is uniquely suited to handle today’s high-end FPGAs. In addition, Precision Synthesis features an award-winning design analysis capability, allowing designers to cross-probe between multiple views as well as perform interactive static timing for rapid “what-if” analyses. Precision Synthesis reduces design iterations, and enables faster, more predictable completion of designs, while delivering high quality of results.

As a part of Mentor Graphics synthesis product line, LeonardoSpectrum offers customers a well-proven, mature synthesis solution for both FPGAs and ASICs.