Power-Efficient System Management Solution
at $1.20 for embedded applications
System Management applications fall into two distinct categories: standards-based and proprietary solutions for telecommunications at the high end, and a demand for low-cost, less complex solutions at the low end, primarily in embedded applications.
Last
year, Actel addressed the high-end system management needs with Fusion
mixed-signal PSCs. Utilizing the larger Fusion devices, Actel released
Fusion-based MicroTCA reference designs for both the power module and
advanced mezzanine cards. In addition, to allow customer development
at the high end and demonstration of its system management capabilities,
Actel released the advanced system management board, which includes several
reference designs and tutorials.
To complement these high-end solutions and address the needs of embedded applications, Actel has released a reference design that enables intelligent, power-efficient system and power management implementations starting at $1.20. This low price is reached through the dramatic levels of integration made possible by the Fusion device, which reduces system cost and board space.
The design combines the award-winning, mixed-signal Fusion PSC with the optimized, configurable, free CoreABC microcontroller, providing a complete system management solution using a fraction of the Fusion part's logic tiles. The solution is delivered in the form of a free reference design and tutorial. The reference design is implemented on the Fusion Starter Kit, a lower cost development platform than the original system management kit. However, the reference design can be used on either kit.
The reference design leaves resources for customization and requires less than 17% of a Fusion AFS250 device and 50% of an AFS090 device. This leaves available resources for tasks such as glue logic, clock generation and management, and further integration, resulting in savings in bill-of-materials, power, and board area. This low-cost solution from Actel brings intelligent system and power management to the masses.
Configurable
Soft Processor
CoreABC is very small, fully configurable, and uses only 241 tiles in its smallest implementation.
It is ideal for any processor application needing only a small number
of instructions. CoreABC is available independent of this reference design
for free from Actel, and is easy to configure and use within the CoreConsole
development environment. It can be either RTL or software programmable,
supports the advanced peripheral bus or APB interface, 
and
can use any cores compatible with this industry-standard bus architecture.
CoreABC costs start at less than 10 cents per instantiation, and can
be used to customize your own system management design.
