The need of the hour is to have a single window for complete product design solution and supply

The latest trend in design houses is that today customers prefer a one stop solution for designs as well as production which is also the need of the hour. Customers have become more application savvy and knowledgeable as we see them now being more participative in every aspect of the product design. This benefits the product design as a whole as the quality of the product improves and is more close to the customers' needs...READ MORE

Dexcel on IP re-use, Indian semicon product companies

Being in the embedded designs domain, Dexcel possesses both the hardware and software skill sets under one roof, supplemented with in-house CAD, mechanical housing and other related expertise to churn-out a complete product or solution. The company keeps a complete control on the project and hence, could deliver the products of quality and performance beyond customer expectations...READ MORE

Dexcel on growth drivers for Indian embedded design industry

It is my endeavor to write about semiconductors, solar/PV, EDA. FPGAs, embedded, etc., and related companies and solutions via this blog. One of the pleasures of writing a semicon blog is in being able to connect with and make a whole lot of friends from different countries, cultures, and companies, as well as bloggers.

One such gentleman is Ravinder Gujral or Ravi, as he’s popularly called, Director – Business Development, Dexcel Electronics Designs Pvt. Ltd. Dexcel, based very much in Bangalore, India, is among one of the emerging companies in the embedded space in the country. Ravi contacted me, like several others, via my blog! Likewise, I was elated to find myself a new friend and reader! Later, we met during Altera’s SOPC event, where Dexcel was exhibiting as well. ..READ MORE

Top 10 embedded companies in India

Right then! This topic should be of interest to several folks in India as well as overseas! Especially, those who are looking to tap the renowned Indian talent in embedded systems and software.

It is very well known that all the leading MNCs are present in India, and well, do great work in embedded systems and software. Definitely, any top 10 list of such companies would include the likes of .....READ MORE

Altera's "Code:DSP" Initiative Accelerates FPGAs Into DSP Mainstream
First C-code-based Design Flow for Reconfigurable DSP Solutions

San Jose, Calif., September 3, 2002 -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today launched Code:DSP, a major initiative to extend the reach of FPGAs from multi-channel, high-performance signal processing functions to a wide range of mainstream DSP-based applications. Highlighted by the industry's first C-code based design flow for FPGAs, the Code:DSP initiative sharpens Altera's focus on the DSP market by offering designers a broad range of support services, tools, and development platforms for implementing reconfigurable DSP designs in leading-edge FPGA devices. ..READ MORE

Programming the IBM Cell Baseband Engine
By T. Shakthi Pradeep, Dexcel Electronics

DSP DesignLine
(06/17/2009 2:31 PM EDT)

The IBM Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) promises high performance at low power using multiple powerful cores connected with a high-speed interconnect. While effective, this architecture raises parallel programming issues that this two-part feature will address.

Here, in Part 1, we will start with an overview of the Cell BE architecture, continue with the basics of threads and how they're used, specifically with respect to single-threaded sequential programming and multi-threaded programming. ..READ MORE

Encryption engine using SOPC

( 01 May 2007 )
by Amit Sinha, CEO and Managing Director, Dexcel Electronics Designs Pte Ltd; and Razak Mohammedali,

Security, a critical feature in today’s networks, enables secure financial transactions such as on-line banking. Network security also enables sharing data across different global locations. Here we discuss a data encryption system used in IP networks.

ENCRYPTION ENGINE
Figure 1 shows a high-level block diagram of the encryption engine in a Stratix II FPGA.
The system receives data from a PC through the USB 2.0 port interface through a FIFO UART, and sends or receives data to and from the LAN network. The data receive speed on the UART is of the order of 450Kbps which is substantially high for the type of solution required. The LAN interface is for 10/100Mbps network.
Since encryption algorithms are typically highly computation intensive it becomes imperative that it is designed in the hardware. Besides, a custom UART is also needed that can handle huge buffers at very high speeds. These system requirements could have been implemented using a processor and a number of ASICs or an FPGA on the PCB. The high-speed traffic of data between the ASICs would have posed serious timing and frequency related issues making the development process tedious and costly. Fortunately, using NIOS II processor and the system on a programmable chip (SOPC) approach to this design helps meet the requirements in minimum time and optimum effort.
Figure 1 reveals the custom logic used inside the FPGA to create such a system. A careful system design ensures proper hardware and software partitioning of requirements, with a bearing on performance and other design criteria.

SOPC DESIGN
The comprehensive range of IPs available for FPGA platform covering embedded processors, interfaces, peripherals, DSP, and communication makes SOPC an attractive proposition.
Embedded systems design needs to address typical constraints like time-to-market, cost, power, and form factor. Typically, embedded systems need processing power, storage space, connectivity to
I/O devices, and communication capability with PC or other systems. There is an increasing demand for the capability to combine custom/proprietary hardwired logic along with all the features that are supported by typical microcontrollers.
Currently a number of microcontroller vendors provide single chip solutions that have a plethora of features, but they do not provide a flexible platform for integrating proprietary logic. SOPC systems based on FPGAs and NIOS II processor provide this benefit of customizing hardware to get an exact fit to any application.
In this design, SOPC system partitioning was done by implementing high speed/throughput data computation for
the encryption engine directly on the hardware and complex algorithms in the software. Other interfaces such as Flash, SDRAM
and LAN interface were implemented using the standard components library in NIOS II. The Avalon Bus was used as the interconnect fabric to integrate all the interfaces and proprietary logic for this application.