RealView® Hardware Platforms are ideal systems for prototyping ARM-based products. They are suitable for architecture and CPU evaluation, hardware and software design, and ASIC emulation. RealView Hardware Platforms are designed to provide value to customers in a number of ways:
Early access to the latest ARM IP, including processors, AMBA interfaces and PrimeCell blocks
Faster time to market achieved by high-speed software debug early in the development cycle
Risk reduction in ASIC designs by prototyping custom hardware in FPGAs and connecting it to real processors and peripherals
Fast environment for application development for a number of operating systems
There are two key families of boards within the RealView Hardware Platforms: IntegratorTM and Versatile families. The RealView Hardware Platforms Selector (1.3MB pdf) white paper provides general guidance about the advantages and disadvantages of different boards, and shows the typical combinations of boards and the basic compatibility rules between different types of boards.
News
The Logic Tile for the Xilinx Virtex-5 XC5VLX330 FPGA is now available with FPGA Production silicon.
The Platform Baseboards for the ARM11 MPCore multicore processor and the ARM1176JZF-S processor are now available.
RealView Versatile Family
Versatile is our latest generation family of boards. They are based on robust high density connectors, which allow several AMBA AHB or AXI buses to be routed between boards, also called "tiles".
The Versatile Family supports systems based on the ARM7TDMI, ARM926EJ-S, ARM1136JF-S, ARM1156T2F-S, ARM1176JZF-S and ARM11 MPCore, and will be the reference architecture for support of new processors.
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RealView Soft Macrocell Models
The new RealView Soft Macrocell Models complement the RealView Integrator and Versatile families of boards by providing FPGA implementations of ARM processors. Soft Macrocell Models are ideal for early evaluation of the latest ARM processors, system prototyping and cycle accurate benchmarking.
Soft Macrocell Models support the latest ARM synthesizable processors, including ARM1136JF-S, ARM1156T2F-S, ARM1176JZF-S and Cortex-R4F.
Discover more about SMM's...
Hardware Platforms Support and Documentation
In the support pages of the ARM website you can find information for development boards, including frequently asked questions (FAQs), downloads of schematics and board programmable logic updates, CD request forms and utility programs.
The user guides for RealView Hardware Platforms can be found in the documentation pages.
Application notes that cover the use of specific peripherals and provide example FPGA RTL and bitfiles for certain combinations of boards can be found in the application notes pages.
RealView Hardware Platforms contain FPGAs and PLDs. In order to reprogram these devices with the latest images provided by ARM or with custom images you need a suitable ICE unit. Versatile baseboards such as EB, PB926EJ-S and AB926EJ-S have an ICE integrated on the PCB, which can be used to reprogram the baseboard itself and other boards stacked on top of it. If your system does not contain a Versatile baseboard you will need a Multi-ICE or an RVI unit to reprogram the FPGAs and PLDs.
Important notice: Impact of obsolescence of leaded (Pb-containing) components
The RealView Hardware Product Obsolescence (68Kb .pdf) provides information about how RealView Hardware Platforms have addressed the obsolescence of electronic components because of the transition to lead-free processes.
Are there any design changes in lead free boards? Lead Free boards design changes
