Electronic Design Services for the Embedded Industry

AMIRIX provides custom electronic design services for the embedded industry to help companies develop new products and enhance existing ones. We manage projects that involve architectural system design and analysis, as well as detailed design and implementation in the form of FPGA design, high performance circuit board design, and embedded software design. We have delivered hundreds of design solutions to customers in telecommunications, defense and aerospace, medical devices and imaging, industrial controls, and gaming applications. Our design solutions are flexible, time-to-market efficient, cost effective and include a 12-month design warranty.

No Hardware or Software Bias - We excel in both hardware and embedded software design. This allows us to craft optimal design solutions that fit each unique challenge without any hardware or software bias.

Depth of Experience - Our people are among the most experienced in the industry and know embedded electronics. By constantly staying abreast of new technology developments, we can deliver economical, bleeding edge solutions.

Complementary Resources - You know your products inside and out, and we have a deep understanding of the latest technology developments in the electronics industry. That's how we differ from, and complement, your internal resources.

Committed Employees, Low Turnover - All of our technical employees are full time, not contract. Our engineers and computer scientists have been with AMIRIX on average for 8 years and our senior staff for an average of 17 years.

Disciplined Project Management - We use proven project management processes, whatever the project size or scope. This allows us to manage our team and co-ordinate with yours to deliver the results you need, when you need them.

You Keep the IP - The intellectual property that we develop for you remains yours without royalties or licensing fees. All you pay for is engineering time and when the project is complete, you do not have the resources on payroll.

Your Silent Partner - As our mantra "our guts...your glory" implies, we work hard and stay behind the scenes. Our design wins are your design wins enabling you to bring next generation products to market ahead of the competition.

About AMIRIX

Founded in 1981 as an R&D microelectronics centre of excellence (then known as the Applied Microelectronics Institute), the company has since evolved into a leading provider of electronic design services for the embedded industry. Since its inception, AMIRIX has successfully delivered over 400 projects ranging from $25,000 to $2,500,000 in size, and from one to 36 months in duration.

Our early roots in the research and academic communities have provided two distinct advantages. We have developed strong research and development capabilities and relish the challenge of applying complex, new technologies to real world applications. And our strong ties to regional universities enable us to recruit and mentor the best and the brightest in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

As a third party resource for product development and enhancement, AMIRIX's design capabilities have enabled numerous customers to realize healthy profits, expand operations and become major economic players in their communities. In return, AMIRIX has established a strong reputation as innovators with a willingness to tackle challenging projects and an ability to turn ideas into successful products in a timely manner.

We've also set up partnerships with contract manufacturers, systems integrators, and distributors to ensure customers are offered complete, idea-to-market, turn key product development solutions at the best possible value.

In 2003, AMIRIX merged with VEMCO Limited, a market leader in the design and manufacture of underwater acoustic telemetry equipment with exports to 45 countries worldwide. VEMCO became an established product division for AMIRIX while our R&D capabilities have greatly enhanced VEMCO's product development resources. To learn more about VEMCO, visit www.vemco.com.

AP100 PCI Platform FPGA Development Boards

The AP100 PCI Platform FPGA Development Board from AMIRIX is a PCI card with a Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA connected to DDR SDRAM, Flash Memory, Ethernet and other interfaces. The AP100 comes configured as a single board computer complete with monitor software and TimeSys Linux. This baseline platform provides designers with an instant, "out-of-box" system for developing embedded FPGA System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions using the Virtex-II Pro. The easy to use AP100 board significantly improves time-to-market and reduces development costs by providing an advanced design starting point. Currently, the AP100 family of boards support the following Xilinx Virtex-II Pro devices: XC2VP7 with one IBM PPC405 core, XC2VP20 with two IBM PPC405 cores, XC2VP30 with two IBM PPC405 cores.

AP100 Board Enhancements to Support Larger Virtex-II Pro Devices Now Under Development
AMIRIX is expanding its AP100 family of boards to include support for the largest Virtex-II Pro FPGAs available from Xilinx: XC2VP70 with two IBM PPC405 cores, XC2VP100 with two IBM PPC405 cores. Boards will be available soon and AMIRIX is currently taking orders.

In addition to the Baseline Platform which is included with your AP100 board purchase, AMIRIX has other platform modules available for sale or currently under development:

Standard Platform Module (Baseline plus Gigabit Ethernet)

Dual Gigabit Ethernet Module

Quad Gigabit Ethernet Module

Various tools are available to support the development of programmable systems design on the AP100 family of boards:

PMC Support Kit

PCI Benchtop AC Adaptor Kit

PCI Benchtop DC Adaptor Kit

Dual Gigabit Ethernet Mezzanine

The Gigabit Ethernet Core is an interface core that lies between a PHY device and a CoreConnect Processor Local Bus (PLB). It is optimized for use in a processor based system and uses Direct Memory Access (DMA) for improved performance. All registers and buffer descriptors are memory mapped and can be accessed directly over the Processor Local Bus. PHY management functions are included.

The Email Trigger Core offers a simple way to have programmable logic hardware send messages through the Internet, for remote monitoring or debugging. The Email Trigger is entirely self-contained, and uses a Virtex-II Pro embedded PowerPC. The interface to user hardware is very simple, and the only external requirement is for an Ethernet PHY.

AMIRIX is continually developing new platform modules, software, boards, and IP solutions to meet the needs of our customers. If your specific application is not met with our standard product line, please contact AMIRIX to discuss the development of a custom platform.