New workflow automates hardware and C code integration for Altera SoC

Hong Kong, November 6, 2014 – Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) has announced new programming support for ARM-based SoC using MathWorks' industry-standard workflow. MathWorks Release 2014b provides an automated, high-level integrated model-based design workflow optimized for Altera SoC. Using this workflow, designers can accelerate algorithm design on Altera SoC through a higher-level programming environment, reducing development time by several weeks.
Ken Karnofsky, Senior Strategist for Signal Processing Applications at MathWorks, stated, "This announcement significantly expands the partnership between Altera and MathWorks, enabling customers to quickly and easily leverage the performance and system-level benefits that Altera SoC offers. Engineers can now use a highly automated SoC workflow in MATLAB and Simulink for algorithm modeling, simulate system test benches, partition into hardware and software subsystems, as well as write C and HDL code and prototype using Altera design tools and development kits."
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The tightly coupled hardware/software workflow enables programmers to simulate, prototype, verify, and implement algorithms targeting the FPGA and ARM processor integrated in Altera SoC FPGA. The design flow automatically generates interfaces between the FPGA, processor system, and software drivers. Support for Altera SoC includes two MathWorks code generation products: HDL Coder™ and Embedded Coder® tools. In a single development environment, engineers can use HDL Coder to generate custom IP cores and configure the programmable logic portion of the SoC, while simultaneously using Embedded Coder to generate C/C++ code running on the ARM-based hard processor system.

The model-based design environment for Altera SoC provides designers with a familiar design environment that does not require extensive hardware engineering experience, thereby accelerating the design process. Designers using Altera SoC can accelerate algorithms in the device's FPGA portion while running the rest of the design on the ARM processor. Release 2014b includes automated support for Altera's cost-effective Cyclone® V SoC, including automatic programming of the Cyclone V SoC development board.
Joerg Bertholdt, Embedded Software Marketing Director at Altera, stated, "We have high expectations for the new level of design support for Altera SoC provided by MathWorks. Altera SoC is built on a solid foundation based on superior architecture, industry-standard development tools, and extensive operating system support. With the addition of MathWorks' model-based design tools to the Altera SoC ecosystem, designers can now much more easily leverage the performance and power consumption benefits that these devices offer."

Availability
Support for Altera SoC is currently provided by MathWorks for the R2014b software release. For more information or downloads, please visit (www.mathworks.com/alterasoc). The Embedded Coder support package and HDL Coder support package for Altera SoC support both Altera's Cyclone V SoC development kit and Arrow's SoCkit development kit.