The move delivers scalability and a standardized processor architecture across the Xilinx portfolio.

“To date Arm’s presence in FPGA has mainly been focused on Cortex-A CPU based SoCs integrated alongside FPGA fabric, rather than within the FPGA fabric,”  replied Arm, “these Arm-based FPGA SoCs have shipped in millions, and an example is the Xilinx Zync SoC family.  What is new is that DesignStart FPGA brings Cortex-M CPUs to the configurable FPGA fabric so that Arm CPUs are now available across all Xilinx FPGAs, providing even more flexibility to FPGA users.”

It is now possible to gain fast,  no cost access to proven, soft processor IP,  design integration with Xilinx tools and software development solutions to accelerate FPGA development.

Developers can choose from a spectrum of options by considering factors such as design requirements, budget, resource availability and time-to-market.

Options include SBCs, off-the-shelf chips, FPGAs and custom silicon.