Synfora announced a new version of its PICO Extreme FPGA C synthesis tool with support for the Xilinx Spartan-6 and Virtex-6 devices as well as seamless integration with the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) tool suite. In addition, the company claims that the new version of PICO Extreme FPGA provides improved quality of results with area and throughput improvements of up to 15 percent.

PICO Extreme FPGA extends high level synthesis technology to FPGA devices, enabling the implementation of larger and more complex FPGA sub-systems, such as video codecs, wireless modems, and imaging pipelines, from untimed C algorithms. It is based on an optimizing compiler that transforms a sequential, untimed C algorithm into RTL, with the aim of reducing design and verification time.
The new 09.03 release of the PICO Extreme FPGA supports the next-generation Xilinx Spartan-6 and Virtex-6 devices. Designers can select a specific Spartan-6 or Virtex-6 part as the target device, and PICO Extreme FPGA will generate RTL optimized for that device in terms of area and performance, including optimal use of block RAMs and DSP48 slices, based on a detailed knowledge of the device characteristics.

The new release also supports integration with the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) tool suite. Designers can direct PICO Extreme FPGA to export designs as custom embedded peripherals that can be imported into the Xilinx embedded development environment and integrated with other IPs including a MicroBlaze processor core to create processor-based designs. It also allows users to interface to streaming communication protocols like FSL and LocalLink as well to DDR memory. The new version of PICO Extreme FPGA also provides improved quality of results based on algorithmic and flow enhancements in the scheduler as well as several new techniques to reduce the number of registers.

Version 09.03 of PICO Extreme FPGA and PICO Extreme are now available. Xilinx and Synfora are collaborating to ensure that training and support are available for both design creation and RTL integration. Contact Synfora at the company web page for more information about computer-based training.