Fab-less chip designer Galileo Technology Inc, has launched a chip it hails as a virtual Swiss Army knife for PCI applications. The GT-64060 PCIntegrator provides a method of interfacing custom logic and memory devices to the industry standard PCI bus, using little or no glue logic. Galileo says the PCIntegtrator forms a gasket between three buses, the 32-bit PCI 2.1 interface with master and target capability, a 50Mhz 32- bit memory/device bus and a 50Mhz master port. The GT-64060 also includes as on-chip peripherals and EDO DRAM controller, device/memory controller, four DMA Direct Memory Access engines and timers. The company is claiming the chip will be less expensive than offerings from many of the other vendors which provide only a simple CPU to PCI slave interface. It also says the GT-64060 can save months of design time, by integrating many of the functions that are normally performed by programmable logic. The Direct Memory Access engines provide 4 channels of chained DMA which are capable of moving data between devices located either on the local bus or on the PCI. Galileo is providing the Galileo-9 PCI evaluation board to enable customers to prototype and develop software for the GT-64060. The board can be used in any PCI-based workstation or plugged in to the company’s optional Galileo-4PB PCI backplane. Samples of the GT- 64060 PCIntegrator are available now. The cost is $24.95 in quantities of 10,000.
