BusinessWire
November 09, 2006 09:27 AM Pacific Time

Starbridge and Impulse Collaborate on C-to-FPGA Acceleration

Combination of graphical and C-language design entry tools provides new opportunities for high-performance computing

KIRKLAND, Wash. & SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Starbridge Systems and Impulse Accelerated Technologies today announced a joint initiative to provided graphical and C-language tools for high-performance, FPGA-based computing. This initiative includes the release of a Platform Support Package (PSP) allowing integration between the Impulse CoDeveloper™ C-to-FPGA compiler and the Starbridge Viva® graphical entry tools. Target applications for the combined tools include bioinformatics, geophysics, security, image processing, financial computing and other industry areas.

“Developers of high-performance computing applications have a need for system-level design tools that allow them to take advantage of the massive levels of parallelism available in FPGA-based systems,” said Kent Gilson, Founder and President of Starbridge. “At the same time, these developers have a strong desire to use software programming languages and tools that are familiar to them. By offering a solution that serves both needs, we expect to attract a much larger number of HPC developers to FPGA-based computing.”

To provide this capability, Starbridge and Impulse have jointly developed a Platform Support Package that allows the Impulse C-to-FPGA compiler tools to generate hardware descriptions (in the form of VHDL and Verilog output files) that are compatible with the Viva graphical tools. The result of this is that C-language descriptions for accelerated algorithms may be freely intermixed with optimized FPGA blocks in the Viva programming environment, then synthesized and downloaded to the FPGA-based target. Supported platform targets include systems available from Silicon Graphics, Nallatech, Pico Computing, Digilent and others.

“We are pleased by the opportunity to work with Starbridge,” stated David Pellerin, CTO of Impulse. “Impulse C has demonstrated its value for C-to-hardware acceleration, and the Viva graphical environment represents an excellent and complementary method of design for scientific, security, financial, and other algorithms.”

Research institutions, government agencies and commercial organizations have an increasing need to accelerate large, computationally-intensive applications in order to decrease processing times and reduce power requirements. FPGAs are widely recognized for their ability to handle such computations in a more efficient manner, using massive levels of parallelism and lower clock rates. The Starbridge Viva development software, when combined with Impulse C, greatly simplifies the development of such applications.

About Starbridge Systems: The Hypercomputing Company

Starbridge Systems is advancing FPGA-based reconfigurable computing by delivering powerful Hypercomputing systems. Hypercomputing offers significant advantages in speed with systems capable of processing complex algorithms in minutes, rather than days or months. The Starbridge Viva development software provides users with a graphical, object-oriented programming tool that drastically simplifies the programming of FPGAs. Starbridge customers include such organizations as NASA, the NSA, the U.S. Air Force, the National Cancer Institute, and others. For more information, visit www.starbridgesystems.com.

About Impulse Accelerated Technologies

Impulse Accelerated Technologies is a privately held Seattle-area company developing software for FPGA-acceleration of C-language applications. The Impulse tools include advanced parallel compiler optimizations including statement scheduling and loop pipelining, as well as providing C-compatible API functions for multi-process parallelism. More information about Impulse C and the Starbridge Viva Platform Support Package can be found at www.ImpulseC.com.