ARM announced the availability of ARM IP through Synplicity’s ReadyIP Program. The ReadyIP program facilitates a vendor-independent design flow using Synplicity’s industry standard FPGA synthesis and system design environments, giving designers easy and secure access to the ARM® Cortex-M1 field programmable gate array (FPGA) processor for quick evaluation, free of charge. The companies developed an ARM Cortex-M1 processor application, based on the AMBA interconnect, running with peripheral IP from CAST, Inc. that was designed using Synplicity’s FPGA synthesis environment.

This flow includes Synplicity’s System Designer capability that facilitates configuration, assembly, and integration of the Cortex-M1 processor and its peripherals. The ARM Cortex-M1 processor is designed specifically for implementation as a soft core in FPGAs. The Cortex-M1 processor targets all major FPGA devices and includes support for FPGA synthesis tools. The processor implements the popular, high density 16-bit Thumb instruction set. This enables both the processor and software footprint to meet the area budget of the smallest FPGA devices, while retaining compatibility with Thumb code for any ARM processor from the ARM7TDMI processor upwards. The Cortex-M1 processor can deliver 0.8 DMIPS/MHz.