Microchip Technology has announced new free toolkits for different products this week. The Ensemble Graphics Toolkit - built on an Apache 2.0 open-source license - is a free open source C++ suite.  The other is the Icicle Development Kit for PolarFire FPGAs.

“Ensemble Graphics Toolkit and Linux can be optimised for boot times of under three seconds from cold reset that is required for applications such as automotive dashboard clusters,” Electronics Labs noted. “By taking advantage of underlying hardware acceleration, including graphics controllers and video decoders when available, the toolkit provides a high-performance user experience on low and mid-range graphical displays up to XGA [1,024 x 768] resolution.”

“Icicle Development Kit for PolarFire FPGAs brings together numerous Mi-V partners to accelerate customer design,” Electronics Weekly reported. “Designers who want to deploy a programmable Risc-V-based SoC/FPGA are now able to evaluate Risc-V ecosystem products such as real-time operating systems (RTOS), debuggers, compilers, and security solutions.”

The Ensemble Graphics toolkit integrates with Microchip’s Linux4SAM Linux offering, which contains driver support for company components such as maXTouch touchscreen controllers and parts for memory, power management, analogue, wired networking and wireless networking.

This toolkit will have applications for low and mid-range resolution, in industrial (robotic and machine controls), medical, consumer, home automation, building automation and automotive (instrumentation) markets. The company product page can be found here.

The Risc-V toolkit for FPGA development is the first of its kind, according to Microchip Technology. The earlier ‘PolarFire’ products are FPGAs with no processor, while the new ‘PolarFire SOC’ is built around an FPGA with CPU cores called MPFS250T-FCVG484EES. The board is called PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit (MPFS-ICICLE-KIT-ES).

“Designers who want to deploy a programmable Risc-V-based SoC/FPGA are now able to evaluate Risc-V ecosystem products such as real-time operating systems (RTOS), debuggers, compilers, and security solutions,” Electronics Weekly notes.

A Libero Silver license is required with the PolarFire SoC Icicle kit to evaluate designs, but they are free and valid for 1 year, and supports single language simulation with programming and debugging features.

The board is said to be compatible with development tools from Adacore, Green Hills, Mentor and Wind River, as well as commercial RTOSs such as Nucleus and VxWorks “that complement Microchip’s Linux and bare-metal solutions”, Microchip noted.

Also middleware from DornerWorks, Hex Five, Veridify Security and wolfSSL, then “SOM and design services from organisations such as Antmicro, ARIES Embedded, Digital Core Technologies, Emdalo Technologies, Sundance DSP and Trenz Electronic,” said Microchip.