News

Apex, NC - Aug 29, 2000 - XESS Corp. announces the availability of its Introduction to WebPACK 3.1 tutorial which provides a quick introduction to new users of the Xilinx WebPACK software.

"Xilinx is expanding the programmable logic audience by making their WebPACK development software for XC9500 CPLDs freely downloadable from the web." said Dave Vanden Bout of XESS Corp. "Our online tutorial supports this effort by leading a new CPLD user through the steps of obtaining and installing WebPACK and then using the software to create designs which work in actual hardware containing XC9500 CPLDs."

The tutorial presents a simple design flow for building logic designs with CPLDs.  Then the reader can click on hyperlinks in the tutorial to get the WebPACK 3.1 installation files from the Xilinx web site.  Then two complete design examples are presented which show how to:

• begin a CPLD project,
• target a specific XC9500 CPLD device,
• generate and flesh-out an HDL skeleton,
• detect and fix HDL syntax errors,
• incorporate hierarchy in a design,
• synthesize a logic netlist from an HDL description,
• fit the synthesized netlist into the XC9500 architecture,
• examine the fitting and timing statistics of the fitted design,
• generate a bitstream file for the XC9500 CPLD,
• download the bitstream file to an XC95108 CPLD on an XESS XS95 development board,
• test the design on the development board.

The Introduction to WebPACK 3.1 tutorial is immediately available for free downloading from www.xess.com.

Apex, NC - May 1, 2000 - XESS Corp. announces the availability of its myCSoC Kit which supports hardware and software development with Triscend Configurable System-on-Chip (CSoC) devices. While this low-cost kit was designed for the educational market, it is also a general-purpose development tool for applications in communications, multimedia, and consumer electronics.

"CSoC devices, which integrate programmable logic with microcontrollers, open the possibilities for new types of designs that blur the line between hardware and software." said Dave Vanden Bout of XESS Corp. "The myCSoC Kit provides a complete, low-cost design environment so universities and students can get experience with CSoC technology from a leading company like Triscend."

"The XESS myCSoC Kit increases the accessibility of our CSoC technology to a key market segment - tomorrow's engineers," said Barry Chaffin, director of marketing at Triscend. "The CSoC market will continue to grow rapidly over the next few years. By working with this leading edge technology today, students will be one step ahead when they join the work force."

The Kit includes a copy of the FastChip development software, a CDROM tutorial on designing with CSoC devices, a prototyping board with a TE505 CSoC, a power supply and a downloading cable. The tutorial shows how the FastChip software is used to configure the TE505's embedded programmable logic into peripheral functions that cooperate with the integrated 8032 microcontroller core. Each example design can be downloaded into 1-Mb of Flash or SRAM on the prototyping board and tested at speeds up to 25 MHz. The board has 80 general-purpose I/O pins for connections to external devices as well as connectors for a keyboard/mouse and a VGA monitor.

The myCSoC Kit will be available in mid-May for $169.95 from XESS Corporation.