Announced cooperation with Xilinx and Arm

   October 9th, 2018 – Arm announces a partnership with Xilinx to bring the benefits of the Arm Cortex-M processor to FPGA project development through the Arm DesignStart project, enabling embedded developers to quickly and easily access mature Arms IP.

With the continuous rapid development and continuous breakthrough of technology, the demand for product design flexibility has also increased. Field programmable gate array (FPGA)/programmable logic device (PLD) shipments are forecast to increase by 74% between 2016 and 2022. * This trend is putting more pressure on OEMs - they need to develop flexible, application-optimized designs faster and with less investment. To meet these needs, developers must be able to easily use the industry's most widely used processors and the broadest range of software, tools and expertise, whether using FPGAs, SoCs (system-on-a-chip) or single-board computers (SBC). Know how.

Arm and FPGA market leader Xilinx worked together to bring the benefits of the Arm Cortex-M processor to FPGA project development through the Arm DesignStart project, providing a scalable and standardized processor architecture for the Xilinx portfolio. With Xilinx tools and comprehensive software development solutions, developers will be able to quickly and cost-effectively acquire and use industry-proven processor IPs to facilitate design integration with Xilinx tools to accelerate the success of FPGA projects.

The Cortex-M processor enables embedded developers to design innovative solutions that are well-informed while benefiting from simplified software development and superior code density. In addition, they will receive support from the broadest ecosystem of software, tools, and service technologies to gain valuable insights into product expansion.

By considering design requirements, budget, resources, and time to market, developers can choose from a range of options. All of these factors will become important in a world of increasing interconnectedness and a wide range of applications and needs. Developer options range from SBCs, general purpose chips, FPGAs and custom chips. Product manufacturers can build their competitive edge with more design flexibility and differentiation through application-optimized FPGA and custom chip designs. By choosing to use Arm technology for the FPGA, designers can accelerate their success in the following ways:

Maximum choice and flexibility: Soft and easy access to the soft core IP of the Cortex-M1 (FPGA-optimized Cortex-M0 processor) and Cortex-M3 processor during FPGA integration of Xilinx products Payment license (License) and royalty (Royalty)

Reduce software costs: from single board to FPGA, maximize software reuse across the entire OEM portfolio through standardized CPU architecture

Easy to design: Easy integration with Xilinx systems and peripherals via the Vivado Design Suite, drag-and-drop design for FPGA systems with Cortex-M processors

Reduce time-to-market: Get a broad software ecosystem and a knowledge base of other designs based on the Arm architecture, including Arm Keil MDK, a full-featured software development kit based on Arm microcontrollers.

 Enhanced design based on Xilinx

Arm's collaboration with Xilinx will give Arms the flexibility of the Arm processor for all developers. With a consistent architecture across the Xilinx Spartan, Artix, and Zynq portfolio, Arm's FPGA-enabled strategy simplifies the entire development process. The partnership between Arm and Xilinx will empower developers to leverage the Cortex-A processor built into the Zync SoC portfolio and the new Cortex-M IP in DesignStart to differentiate on a single processor architecture. The advantage of constructing calculations. By assigning processing tasks to the right computing engine, developers can create more sophisticated products for high-performance Cortex-A, real-time Cortex-M, or custom logic.

Arm DesignStart continues

Since its launch in 2010, the DesignStart project has been providing the industry with a quick way to get Arm IP. DesignStart provides developers with access to proven Arm IPs and subsystems at low cost or zero upfront licensing fees, helping companies design with minimal risk while providing a wealth of resources, support and tools throughout the Arm ecosystem. In the past 12 months alone, more than 3,000 prototype downloads have been made through the DesignStart project, and more than 300 commercial license agreements have been signed. As Arm continues to advance the vision of the tera-connected device, the Cortex-M processor developed for FPGAs will provide developers with more access and use.