October 28, 2005 -- CAST, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of ready-to-use IP subsystems for designers working with ARM processors and the AMBA bus architecture. The new Pre-integrated IP (PiP) products give system-on-chip (SoC) designers a head start by providing the basic hardware and software infrastructure needed for an ARM-based SoC.

Each PiP includes several essential IP cores - bus controllers, timers, interrupt controllers, UARTs, SRAM controllers, I/O interfaces, and more - plus all the device drivers and boot code needed to start developing application software right away. They also include embedded real-time operating system (RTOS) support, and a comprehensive test suite that features an ARM7 bus functional simulation model.

The ARM-based PiPs are developed by new CAST partner SoC Solutions LLC, a Georgia-based embedded products company and one of only three US firms with Approved Design Center Certification from ARM, Ltd. These and other IP products are already used in production or design-phase projects by a number of SoC Solutions customers.

The pre-verified PiPs can save considerable design and test time versus acquiring and integrating all the separate elements. Pre-integration by SoC Solutions' ARM system experts also makes each PIP smaller and more efficient than typical systems built from individual commercial cores, which often include features not needed in the ARM-based SoC.

Two PiP products are available now for use with ARM's low-power, 32-bit RISC microprocessors:

The CAST PIP7-TDMI works with the ARM7 processor family and uses the native ARM7TDMI system bus. The CAST PIP-AMBA works with the ARM7 and ARM9 processors families, and uses the AHB system bus and APB peripherals bus.