[sdiy] Actel Fusion

[ASSI]

On Freitag 25 Januar 2008, Barry Klein wrote:
> Another platform that may have potential for us is the Actel Fusion. 
> I guess it has been out for some time but today is the first I had
> heard of it.

Unless you absolutely need a single-chip solution, using the "normal" 
FPGA with a uC-baseboard may be more practical.  Like this:

http://www.acmesystems.it/?id=120
http://www.acmesystems.it/?id=4

In Germany you can buy these through Elektronikladen/Elmicro (which is 
where I found them); ACME lists Imagecraft and MicroController Pros as 
U.S. sources.

> Anyone have any experience with it and have an idea of chip costs and
> the fusion starter kit cost?

http://www.actel.com/products/hardware/devkits_boards/fusion_starter.aspx

The boards are listed through mouser, just click the "Buy Online" Tab.

> They talk of a choice between ARM and 8051 
> soft core processor for the FPGA too.  Would that be free or? 

The M7 core is free, but you need an M7 enabled part, which is more 
expensive than the normal one.  The Core8051s requires registration 
(this is tied to the free development software license which you need 
anyway), but the 100% compatible Core8051 needs to be licensed.  
utilization and max. frequency is lower for the free core (utilization 
likely due to reduced feature set).  The smallest free uC core is 
CoreABC, which is the moral equivalent of picoBlaze for Xilinx.

http://www.actel.com/products/software/coreconsole/ipcores.aspx

> Got an idea of part costs?

See Mouser, but if you plan on getting 1k or more talk to Actel directly 
(if your company already has an account with them they may actually 
throw you an eval board). :-)


Achim.
-- 
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