Microchip trio of tools slashes time to innovation

For the growing number of system designers switching to PolarFire FPGAs and SoCs, Microchip announces new development resources and design services to aid the move, including the first mid-range industrial edge stack, ready-to-customise cryptography and boot libraries of soft intellectual property (IP) and new tools to convert existing FPGA designs to PolarFire devices.

The additions expand Microchip FPGA’s comprehensive suite of tools and services supporting the proven PolarFire family of devices – which includes the only RISC-V SoC FPGA shipping in volume production.  

“The intelligent edge demands the very best in power efficiency, security, safety and reliability,” said Shakeel Peera, Vice President of Strategy for Microchip FPGA. “Our new mid-range industrial edge stack and related tools offer more than just automation IP and enable secure edge compute, analytics, machine learning, and high-availability data interconnects for Industrial IoT end points.” 

“Customers are switching to PolarFire FPGAs and SoCs because they can create products that weren’t possible before, establish clear product differentiation and accelerate their time to innovation,” said Bruce Weyer, Corporate Vice President of Microchip FPGA. “Our mid-range technology leadership and unmatched RISC-V-based compute solutions offer system architects unprecedented design flexibility and efficiency.”

To back its FPGA-based embedded processor portfolio, Microchip offers broad RISC-V development support with more than 60 companies now in its Mi-V ecosystem.

The seven new resources and conversion tools offer immediate benefits at every stage of design and development and make it easier than ever to switch to PolarFire FPGAs and SoCs. They include:  

A comprehensive industrial edge stack for Open Platform Communications/Unified Architecture (OPC/UA)-based IIOT applications.

Cryptography and boot soft IP libraries that can be fully customised. They join more than 200 proven, optimised and easy-to-use processor soft cores and other Microchip FPGA IP elements and more than 120 third-party cores. Each library element is optimised for the best area and timing with PolarFire FPGAs and SoCs for fast designs and prototypes.

Direct conversion scripts to move quickly from other vendors’ FPGAs, including step-by-step tutorials to switch from these alternative FPGA families.

A high-performance AI/ML development flow that lets algorithm creators build their own mid-range FPGAs. This solution features SmartHLS compiler software, the VectorBlox accelerator software development kit (SDK) and neural-network IP.

A new PolarFire SoC development kit for our award-winning smart embedded vision solution stack, giving industrial vision designers a head start in developing post-sensor processing and vision-connectivity systems.

A tutorial, presentation, and resource guide on how to design cool-temperature edge nodes. These resources join the company’s extensive library of FPGA and SOC tutorial videos.

Microchip is also making available a new power-consumption tutorial and a tool to evaluate any design’s power efficiency and thermal management within vendor-provided estimators. These resources join a comprehensive suite of FPGA design services including consulting, use-case modelling, and test benches, to programming, validation and prototype builds, design optimisation and fitting, current and custom IP, and firmware development.

Microchip FPGA’s Libero SoC Design Suite integrates a rich IP library (available in evaluation, no-charge, and RTL versions), and the VectorBlox Accelerator supports the most common frameworks. Both are available to license, including no-charge versions, from Microchip’s Purchasing and Client Services website, Microchip direct. The OPC/UA industrial edge stack is expected to be available this quarter. Specific pricing is available on request. PolarFire FPGA and SoC development kits and hardware are also available on the website.