Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc. (FMA) has released a FlexRay® evaluation kit, an FPGA-based development platform that enables the design and verification of hardware and software applications before production silicon is available.
The evaluation kit is the first product in which Fujitsu will use the FlexRay controller IP, which it licensed from Bosch. The kit consists of an FPGA board with the FlexRay communication controller, the physical layer, and an MCU starter kit equipped with the MB91369, a 32-bit FR50 core. Along with the hardware comes a software package featuring a communication stack, which meets series production requirements for evaluation purposes or prototype development of FlexRay products.
The modular design of the FPGA board assures that any updates in the protocol or physical layer specifications can be implemented quickly without the need for a redesign. The board, which has pre-installed RS-485 bus drivers, provides sockets that allow the addition of third-party plug-in modules with FlexRay-compliant drivers.
The MB91369 FR50 RISC core is built with a Harvard architecture featuring a five-stage pipeline with single-cycle instruction execution. The 32-bit parallel bus interface of the FR50 core allows rapid access to the FlexRay controller.
Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc. • (800) 866-8608 • www.fujitsu.com