New FPGA Peripheral Core Components

The Summer 09 release of Altium Designer sees the inclusion of three new FPGA peripheral core components. A configurable Wishbone 1-Wire Master Controller (WB_OWM_V2), and a configurable LED Controller – in both Wishbone (WB_LED_CTRL) and non-Wishbone (LED_CTRL) flavors.

WB_OWM_V2

The new configurable 1-Wire Master Controller peripheral can be configured to support up to 8 independent 1-Wire buses. In terms of bus interface, you can either specify use of a single, bidirectional port (for ease of wiring) or revert to a tristate interface, as per the legacy WB_OWM peripheral.

The new 1-Wire Master Controller can be configured to handle up to eight 1-Wire buses, giving you
even greater flexibility in your designs!

The new peripheral has full support in both the OpenBus System and the Software Platform.

Availability

From an OpenBus System document, the One Wire Master component can be found in the Peripherals region of the OpenBus Palette panel.

From a schematic document, the WB_OWM_V2 component can be found in the FPGA Peripherals (Wishbone) integrated library (FPGA Peripherals (Wishbone).IntLib), located in the \Library\Fpga folder of the installation.

WB_LED_CTRL

The new configurable Wishbone LED Controller provides you with the facility to connect and control various LEDs used in your design, with respect to their light intensity. The controller can handle connection of up to 255 LEDs – of either standard or RGB type.

The configurable Wishbone LED Controller can be configured to handle up to 255
connected LEDs, with intensity controlled directly under software control.

In terms of output to each connected LED, you can either specify individual enable/output lines, or bused output.

The new peripheral has full support in both the OpenBus System and the Software Platform.

Availability

From an OpenBus System document, the LED Controller component can be found in the Peripherals region of the OpenBus Palette panel.

From a schematic document, the WB_LED_CTRL component can be found in the FPGA Peripherals (Wishbone) integrated library (FPGA Peripherals (Wishbone).IntLib), located in the \Library\Fpga folder of the installation.

LED_CTRL

The non-Wishbone variant of the configurable LED Controller provides much the same functionality as its Wishbone counterpart, with the difference being in how the intensity of connected LEDs is controlled. Options in the configuration dialog for the Controller allow you to:

• Set a constant intensity level – between 0 and 255.

• Connect a single, 8-bit global control signal, used as input to determine the intensity of all connected LEDs

• Connect individual, 8-bit control signals, used as input to determine the intensity of individually connected LEDs.

The configurable LED Controller (non-Wishbone) can be configured to handle up to 255
connected LEDs, with intensity control either static or controlled by individual or global
input signals, giving you maximum flexibility.

Availability

From a schematic document, the LED_CTRL component can be found in the FPGA Peripherals integrated library (FPGA Peripherals.IntLib), located in the \Library\Fpga folder of the installation.