Xilinx has unveiled the Zynq-7000 family, the industry’s first Extensible Processing Platform (EPP) that has been developed to meet the growing levels of processing and compute performance required in high-end embedded applications that target markets such as video surveillance, automotive driver assistance and factory automation.
Supported by an extensive ecosystem of tools at IP providers, the Zynq-7000 family integrates a complete ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor based systen with 28nm, low-power programmable logic for system architects and embedded software developers to extend and differentiate their systems.
The development has been welcomed by many of the company‘s customers.
“For more than 10 years we have been discussing exactly this symbiosis possibility of processor and FPGA on one die to reduce cost and PCB space. Over time several companies have tried such an approach, but none of them offered a tight integration that allowed us to meet our targets. Finally, our long time wish becomes reality with the Xilinx Zynq-7000 family,” said Ralf Schäffer, project lead at Agilent Life Science Group. “This means we can now create many different product variants on a common code base from low-end, mid-range, to high-end, with minimal cost and engineering overhead.”
Each Zynq-7000 EPP device is built with an ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processing system with NEON and Double Precision Floating Point engines that is fully integrated and hardwired, and includes L1 and L2 caches, memory controllers, and commonly used peripherals. The processing system boots at power-up and can run a variety of operating systems independent of the programmable logic. The processing system then configures the programmable logic on an as needed basis. With this approach, the software programming model is exactly the same as standard, fully featured ARM processor-based SoCs.
Application developers can take advantage of the programmable logic’s massive parallel processing to handle large amounts of data across a wide range of signal processing applications, as well as extend the features of the processing system by implementing additional peripherals. High-bandwidth AMBA 4 Advanced Extensible Interface (AXI4) interconnect between the processing system and the programmable logic enables multi-gigabit data transfers at very low power, thereby eliminating common performance bottlenecks for control, data, I/O, and memory.
The Zynq-7000 family can help accelerate time to market by providing an open design environment that facilitates parallel development of software for the dual-core Cortex-A9 processor-based system and custom accelerators in the programmable logic. Software developers can leverage the Eclipse environment, Xilinx Platform Studio Software Development Kit (SDK), ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) and ARM RealView Development Suite (RVDS), or compilers, debuggers, and applications from leading vendors within the ARM Connected Community and Xilinx Alliance Program ecosystems, such as Lauterbach, Wind River, PetaLogix, The MathWorks, Mentor Graphics, Micrium, and MontaVista.
In parallel, the Zynq-7000 family’s programmable fabric can be tailored to maximize system level performance and application specific requirements, leveraging Xilinx’s ISE Design Suite.
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The Zynq-7000 family’s programmable logic is based on Xilinx’s newest 7 series FPGA architecture to ensure 100% compatibility with respect to IP, tools and performance across all devices within the 28nm generation. The smallest Zynq-7000 devices, the Zynq-7010 and Zynq-7020 device, are based on the Artix-7 family which is optimised for low-cost and low power. The larger Zynq-7030 device and Zynq-7040 device are based on the Kintex-7 family and includes between four and twelve10.3 Gbps transceiver channels and a PCI Express Gen2 block for high-speed off-chip connectivity. All 4 devices also include a new dual 12bit 1Msps ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) block . “The Extensible Processing Platform provides high-performance processors paired with a high-bandwidth connection to programmable-logic fabric in a single chip, making it an ideal target for National Instruments’ graphical design environment, LabVIEW,” said Keith Odom R&D Fellow, National Instruments. “The low-latency and high throughput provided by this architecture enables innovation in a number of application areas, from industrial automation to communication systems to machine vision.”
Since April 2010, early access customers have been evaluating the Zynq-7000 Extensible Processing Platform.
“Our Zynq-7000 family offer designers a comprehensive platform that enables them to create their own customized standard products that scale from very cost- and power-effective solutions based on the capabilities of the Artix-7 FPGA family, to more comprehensive and performance-oriented solutions on the higher end with devices based on the Kintex-7 family,” said Vin Ratford, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Business Development at Xilinx. “The tight integration of the processing system with the programmable logic not only effectively reduces system bill of materials, power, and size, but will serve as an ‘innovation engine’ that can drive innovative applications and significantly expand the markets being served by traditional FPGA approaches to embedded systems.”
