Nallatech
Shortest time from concept to real working product in the FPGA.
Nallatech FPGA Computing Tools offer a comprehensive application development environment for FPGA Computing hardware, with support for a variety of leading high-level FPGA design tools and an integrated C-to-VHDL compiler. It abstracts the features of the hardware platform from the development environment to accelerate one of the most time-consuming elements of FPGA system design.
Below are more facts about Nallatech:
Technology Brief
Overview of the technology
- Multi FPGA Computing hardware platform, supports multi I/O and Memory technologies (DIME)
- FPGA System Software that abstract the hardware away from third party development tools. (DIMEtalk & FUSE)
- More information (PDF)
History of the company and origins of the technology
- 12 Years Expertise in FPGA Computing supplying full systems solutions to customers and providing design services
- Over 1500 System Installations worldwide
- Origins from embedded parallel Heterogeneous computing with technologies including processors, DSPs, ASSPs and FPGAs
- More information (PDF)
Language Backgrounder
Which languages are supported?
- DIMEtalk is an FPGA communications networking tool that moves data between process nodes and seemlessly interfaces to memory and I/O
- DIMEtalk & FUSE supports Third party compilers and other tools including Impulse C and MATLAB
- Supports ANSI C
- More information (PDF)
How is parallelization achieved?
- Development tools developed specifically to enable the construction of distributed processing custom compute engines
- Parallelization is achieved in several ways. Each process that is connected into a DIMEtalk network will inherently run in parallel from all other processes
- With the DIME-C Enabler included with DIMEtalk, fine grained parallelism is automatically inferred using data flow
Are multiple clock domains supported?
- Yes, multiple clocks supported
Level of Abstraction - How different is it from coding in HDL?
- Pure ANSI C using DIME-C enabling tool
- No need to write any HDL
- Tools drive use all the way through to bitstream
Is floating point operation supported?
Is an interface to Matlab supported?
- Yes, ( FUSE for Matlab) allows control of FPGA computing platform from within MATLAB operating environment
- Basic support for System Generator from Xilinx with full support coming shortly
- More information (PDF)
Are standalone function libraries available?
What format is the synthesis output?
- DIMEtalk & DIME-C generates VHDL
Quality of results / Optimization scenarios
- No hand tweaking supported or recommended
Simulation and debugging flows
- System level debug supported with DIMEtalk - Requires user to build debug into design
- DIME-C ANSI-C code is simulated using standard C debugging tools before compiling to FPGA
What is the learning curve?
- 10 times plus improvement on learning HDL tools
- Experience shows that tools are familiar to C programmers
Skill pre-requisite
- No, VHDL required. Require understanding of distributed parallel programming and ANSI-C
Suitability and Fit
Who is the target audience?
Which applications segments are targeted by this product?
- Image Processing, Encryption, DSP, HPC
What are the characteristics of the target application?
- Must be highly parallelizable and /or deep pipeline with little recursion
Main value proposition?
- Time from concept to working hardware is the fastest in the industry
How can you find out if your application is a good candidate for this tool methodology?
- Users should provide an analysis of their algorithm taking into account parallelisation, Pipelining, and use of variable types that are required
Language and methodology limitations
- Tightly integrated with Nallatech hardware (licensing to third party hardware supported on customer by customer basis)
Successful deployment examples
- UAV detect and avoid processor
Customer testimonials
Pricing
- Hardware modular from $2.5K to $50K per multi-FPGA system
Xilinx Integration
Which Xilinx devices/architectures are supported?
- Virtex™-4 FPGAs
- Virtex-II Pro FPGAs
- Virtex-II FPGAs
Which Xilinx CPUs are supported?
Inference of Xilinx Library components
- Through DIMEtalk it is possible to include any VHDL component
Benchmark studies targeting Xilinx
Flow integration with EDK/XPS, ISE, System Generator (Implementation)
- DIMEtalk generates ISE™ project file for direct ISE build of target
Flow integration with EDK/XPS, ISE, System Generator (Simulation)
How much Xilinx expertise is needed to get a design from concept to final implementation?
- No Xilinx expertise is needed to get a design from concept to final implementation
Getting Started
How to get started
Design examples for various Xilinx boards
- Yes, examples for all Nallatech hardware, including bundled IP for memory interfaces and I/O.
Request for evaluation
Sales kits available?
(i.e. bundling of boards, software, examples for an integration out of the box experience)
Design services / consultancy available?
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