Xilinx Inc. has introduced the architecture for a new Extensible Processing Platform that will deliver unrivalled levels of system performance, flexibility and integration to developers of a wide variety of embedded systems. The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor-based platform enables system architects and embedded software developers to apply a combination of serial and parallel processing to address the challenging system requirements presented by the global demand for embedded systems to perform increasingly complex functions.
The Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform offers embedded systems designers a processor-centric design and development approach for achieving the compute and processing horsepower required to drive tasks involving high-speed access to real-time inputs, high-performance processing and complex digital signal processing needed to meet their application-specific requirements, including lower cost and power.
“Today’s embedded software developer is being tasked to build complex applications that require tremendous levels of system performance, and they need to deliver that performance within tightly managed cost, schedule and power budgets,” said Vin Ratford, Xilinx Senior Vice-President for Worldwide Marketing and Business Development. “By creating an architecture within a familiar ARM processor-based development framework, this new Extensible Processing Platform can be the engine of innovation for many design teams held back today by performance bottlenecks.”
The ARM architecture and its Connected Community ecosystem further maximize productivity for developers of embedded systems, while unrivalled performance is achieved by Xilinx’s architecting the subsystem around ARM’s dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processors, each running at up to 800 MHz, combined with the parallel-processing capabilities of Xilinx’s high-performance, low-power 28-nanometer programmable logic. The new Extensible Processing Platform is part of Xilinx’s Targeted Design Platform strategy, which provides customers with market- and application-specific environments that are easy to use, enabling them to evaluate and understand technology, and finally provide application platforms that can be modified and extended to accelerate their development time and focus on differentiation. Xilinx has also engaged with ARM Services to provide detailed ARM Cortex-A9 hardware training for design teams and field application engineers who will be supporting the eventual product rollout.
