Actel Introduces IGLOO-based Portable Control Solutions

New Daughter Cards Enable Human Machine Interface and Miniature Motor Control
Functionality

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Further expanding
its offerings for the portable market based on the industry's lowest power
field-programmable gate array (FPGA), Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) today
announced two plug-in daughter cards developed to manage human machine
interface (HMI) and miniature motor control functionality. The new HMI
Daughter Card and the Motor Control Daughter Card are offered as plug-ins to
Actel's popular IGLOO Icicle Kit. Combined with the company's previously
announced IGLOO-based storage and display-related development boards, design
examples and intellectual property (IP) cores, the company believes these new
control-related solutions will increase market penetration for Actel's 5
microwatt IGLOO FPGAs in the rapidly growing portable market.
"Over the past year, we have targeted our ultra low-power IGLOO FPGAs at
key functions, such as storage, display, and control, within portable
designs," said Actel vice president, Yankin Tanurhan. "A platform-based
design approach, our sophisticated and flexible HMI and miniature motor
control solutions enable designers to shave months off of their design time
and easily meet the most stringent power budgets."
Small Footprint Daughter Boards Speed Control Design with Turnkey
Solutions
As keypads, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for backlight and display, and
motors have grown commonplace, portable designers have typically relied on
microcontrollers, application-specific standard products (ASSPs) or complex
programmable logic devices (CPLDs) to handle HMI and miniature motor control
functions. However, microcontrollers and ASSPs do not provide adequate
flexibility and CPLDs do not offer the levels of integration or sophistication
of FPGAs.
Co-developed with partners Ishnatek, a design services company, and Avnet
Memec, a division of Avnet, the new HMI and miniature motor control solutions
provide a platform-based design approach, enabling designers to quickly and
easily address changing requirements, implement custom algorithms, and make
design changes through device reprogramming.
The HMI Daughter Card demonstrates keypad control, brightness control for
white LEDs, color mixing for red, green blue (RGB) LEDs and tone generation,
which is beneficial for applications like smart phones, portable gaming
consoles and remote control devices. The Motor Control Daughter Card
demonstrates brushless DC and stepper motor control and can support a variety
of functions often found in portable medical, industrial and consumer
applications, such as respirators, infusion and volumetric pumps, smart phones
and security cameras.
An attractive low-power platform for portable design, the feature-rich
microwatt IGLOO FPGAs can absorb additional glue logic and multiple functions
-- from storage and display to control -- into a single chip, thereby reducing
bill of materials, board area, power consumption and cost. And, with IGLOO's
power-saving Flash*Freeze function, one of several power modes the IGLOO
family offers to optimize power consumption, designers can tap the lowest
power solution for HMI and miniature motor control applications-up to 1700
times lower than competing programmable solutions.
According to Marc Gsand, vice president, technical marketing at Avnet
Electronics, who will sell the new boards, "Avnet Memec's customers value
solutions which enable them to get to market faster. These daughter cards,
which leverage Actel's award-winning IGLOO FPGAs, provide a complete reference
for power-sensitive and portable applications, going beyond just a piece of
silicon. Customers further benefit from the knowledge that the complimentary
devices on the daughter cards, which are available from the Avnet Memec line
card, have been proven to work together."
About the IGLOO Icicle Kit
Leveraging the company's microwatt IGLOO FPGA, the Icicle Kit showcases
the ultra low-power attributes, flexible implementation options and
battery-saving advantages of IGLOO FPGAs for portable applications. The $99
kit allows designers to easily and rapidly program, evaluate and modify their
low-power IGLOO-based portable designs. Powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion
battery, the 1.4" x 3.6" Icicle evaluation board consumes less than one-
seventh the power of competitive FPGA development solutions in a design the
size of a small cell phone.
Pricing and Availability
Available now, customers can purchase the $99 Icicle Kit from Actel. The
HMI and motor control daughter cards can be purchased from Avnet's Design
Resource Center at http://em.avnet.com/acteligloohmicard and
http://em.avnet.com/acteligloomotorcard, respectively. Pricing for the
daughter cards is $139 and $229 for the HMI and motor control solutions,
respectively. The RTL design files, packaged as design examples, will also be
available for free download from Actel's website.
About Actel
Attacking power consumption from both the chip and the system levels,
Actel Corporation's innovative FPGAs and programmable system chip solutions
enable power-efficient design. The company is traded on the NASDAQ National
Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court,
Mountain View, Calif., 94043-4655. For more information about Actel, visit
http://www.actel.com.
The Actel name, logo and Actel IGLOO are trademarks of Actel Corporation.
All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective
owners.
SOURCE Actel Corporation

Stephanie Mrus of Actel Corporation, +1-650-318-4614,
stephanie.mrus@actel.com; or Diane Orr of Orr & Company, +1-408-358-1617,
diane@orr-co.com, for Actel Corporation