February 25, 2008 -- Xilinx, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of a new development kit for low-cost embedded systems development that delivers the flexibility of the MicroBlaze embedded processor with Linux OS support and the processing performance of the Spartan-3A DSP FPGA family. Embedded design teams working on Ethernet Networking and Linux applications can eliminate the risk of processor obsolescence and reduce overall system cost by using the new kit to quickly architect the complete processing system on a low-cost FPGA and to develop software applications.

The kit provides design teams with a low-cost Spartan-3A DSP FPGA development board and a complete set of hardware and development tools, including the Platform Studio embedded design tool suite which includes an Eclipse-based software development kit (SDK) and ISE WebPACK design tools. The kit also includes JTAG download and debug cables, serial and Ethernet cables as well as power supplies so design teams can be up and running quickly out of the box. Reference designs supporting MicroBlaze processor, Ethernet, LynuxWorks BlueCat Linux image with TCP/IP networking stack and webserver applications are also included to help increase productivity.

Designers can use the new embedded kit to develop low-cost, Linux-based embedded systems driven by a Spartan-3A XCS3D1800A FPGA, which can deliver over 20GMAC/s for under $30 in a small-footprint package. The kit supports advanced designs requiring 128-MByte DDR2 SDRAM, 16-MByte Parallel Flash as well as 8-MByte SPI Flash. 10/100/1000 Ethernet, RS-232 Serial, and VGA interfaces are also supported. Using the optional memory management unit now available with the MicroBlaze processor lets designers take full advantage of virtual memory and memory protection features to ease the development of software applications.

Pricing and Availability