News and New Products

Adaptive-computing platform yields flexible hardware control

By Gabe Moretti -- EDN, 2/19/2004

Quicksilver has introduced its first product in the adaptive-computing market (Picture). This technology allows designers to dynamically modify the hardware architecture of a device, depending on the functions a device requires at a given time. This technology gives designers the flexibility of choosing which applications it will execute at a given time and the ability to do so with the additional speed of dedicated hardware, instead of software.

The QuickSilver Adapt2000 ACM (adaptive-computing-machine) combines both products and business arrangements. Part of the introduction, the Adapt2400 IC, offers four hardware primitives that you can arrange and duplicate in a number of ways to implement the equivalent of reprogrammable, reconfigurable ASIC. The primitives, or nodes, connected to each other by a MIN (matrix-interconnect-network) structure that steers the data among the computing nodes. The structure of each node is regular; the only difference among them is the size of the memory and the algorithmic engine.

The AXN (adaptive-execution node) offers DSP-like functions and can be useful in matrix manipulations. The DBN (domain bit-manipulation node) allows bit operations, such as decoding or checksum calculations. You can also include on the device PSN (programmable scalar node), a four-stage-pipelined RISC processor node, as well as and the XMC (external-memory controller) node. You can use four to 128 nodes in your architecture.

QuickSilver has also formed a technology pool that aims at creating a family of IP (intellectual-property) products that it shares both internally and with its customers. The details of the license allow for a number of scenarios from freely usable IP to license bearing IP blocks. The $300,000 cooperative license provides customers with access to the technology pool, which includes the RTL description of the Adapt2400 device; verification suites and documentation; and source code to the compilers, assemblers, and other software tools and the appropriate documentation. Three pay-as-you-go phases allow customers to evaluate and benchmark, explore and analyze the design, and complete the product.

The fourth component of the ACM platform, the InSpire software-development kit, provides a simulation platform and a configuration mechanism and allows you to integrate the device in a larger system through a SystemC-interface mechanism. The tool set perpetual license costs $50,000 per seat.

QuickSilver Technology, 1-408-574-3300, www.quicksilvertech.com.