San Jose, Calif., October 1, 2014—ARM TechCon—Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) and ARM (LON: ARM; NASDAQ: ARMH) today announced a long-term agreement to expand their strategic partnership for best-in-class embedded software development tools for SoC FPGAs. In 2012, Altera and ARM announced the creation of the ARM® Development Studio 5 (DS-5™) Altera® Edition, which pioneered the invention of FPGA-Adaptive Debugging for SoC FPGAs. Through the expanded agreement announced today, the ARM DS-5 Altera Edition toolkit is being enlarged to include the following additional tools:
• ARM Compiler 5 and ARM Compiler 6, providing the only build tool chains specifically designed to optimize software for the Cortex®-A9 and Cortex-A53 processors in Altera’s SoC portfolio
• Debug support for ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor in Stratix® 10 SoC, including FPGA-Adaptive Debug capabilities for removing the debug barrier between the multi-core subsystem and FPGA fabric
The companies also agreed to a long-term OEM agreement for DS-5 Altera Edition to provide support for all future ARM-based Altera SoC devices, ensuring a consistent, industry-leading software development platform across Altera’s portfolio of SoC FPGAs.
“DS-5, in combination with ARM processors and ARM CoreSight™ debug technology, delivers advanced solutions for software development on SoC FPGAs,” said Hobson Bullman, general manager, Development Solutions Group, ARM. “This agreement with Altera enables their customers to access the newest tools, minimizing their development cost, risk and time-to-market for future ARM-based devices.”
Chris Balough, senior director, SoC Product Marketing, Altera said, “Altera customers have responded overwhelmingly to the critical productivity advantage we introduced with DS-5 Altera Edition and FPGA-Adaptive Debug support, and we have shipped thousands of licenses. Our extended OEM agreement with ARM enables us to provide an even richer toolkit while maintaining the same low price. Developing with SoC FPGAs has just become even more compelling for our customers.”
ARM DS-5 Altera Edition Yields Unprecedented Developer Productivity
ARM Development Studio 5 is ARM’s flagship tools solution for embedded software development. ARM DS-5 Altera Edition is a complete tools solution exclusively for Altera SoCs, sold and distributed by Altera, and optimized to remove the debugging barrier between the integrated multi-core CPU subsystem and the FPGA fabric. The new DS-5 Altera Edition provides a substantial productivity gain for product development based on Altera SoC FPGAs. Key features include the following:
• Debug and trace support for 32-bit dual-core Cortex-A9 CPUs in Cyclone® V, Arria® V and Arria 10 SoCs and 64-bit quad-core Cortex-A53 in Stratix 10 SoCs
• ARM Compiler 5 (ARMv7) and ARM Compiler 6 (ARMv8) tool chains
• FPGA-Adaptive Debug support for SoC FPGAs, including software register views of IP programmed into the FPGA and cross-triggering between CPU and FPGA logic domains for hardware/software co-debugging
• Advanced trace, including time-correlated events in FPGA fabric with software events and processor instruction trace
• DS-5 Streamline™ performance analyzer for identification and correction of system-level bottlenecks
Altera SoC Design Resources
Building a product with a strong architecture is key to ensuring system design meets performance requirements now and in the future. Altera provides many SoC design resources to help designers make the right choices.
• Altera.com: Choosing the Right SoC Architecture for Your Application http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/fpgas/architecture/emb-arch-matters.html
• Video (7:20): FPGA-Adaptive Debug on the Altera SoC Using ARM DS-5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NBcUv2TxbI
• ARM TechCon Session – Thursday, Oct 2, 2:30 p.m. – Location F: Wireless Digital Pre-Distortion Optimization and Profiling in Altera SoC Devices, by Richard Maiden, Altera senior manager for Wireless Systems Solutions Engineering
http://schedule.armtechcon.com/session/wireless-dpd-digital-pre-distortion-optimization-and-profiling-in-altera-soc-devices
• Architecture Brief: Altera SoC FPGA-Adaptive Debug http://www.altera.com/literature/ab/ab20_soc_fpga.pdf
Availability and Pricing
DS-5 Altera Edition is exclusively available for Altera SoCs. One license is included in every Altera SoC development kit at no extra cost. DS-5 Altera Edition is also included in the Altera SoC Embedded Design Suite, which is available for $995 or as a free 30-day evaluation at http://dl.altera.com/soceds/?edition=subscription. More information about DS-5 Altera Edition can be found at www.altera.com/ds-5-ae. The next release of DS-5 Altera Edition, which will add the ARM Compiler 5, is planned for November 2014. Existing customers under valid maintenance can receive the new release at no cost.
About Altera
Altera® programmable solutions enable designers of electronic systems to rapidly and cost effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Altera offers FPGAs, SoCs, CPLDs, ASICs and complementary technologies, such as power management, to provide high-value solutions to customers worldwide. Visit www.altera.com
