Featured Product: Simulink Fixed Point 6 targets more accurate design, simulation

A major upgrade within The MathWorks Simulink product family, Simulink Fixed Point 6 delivers capabilities for designing and simulating fixed-point systems and generating optimized code for implementation, while streamlining workflows. While fixed-point systems are cheaper, engineers tend to think in floating-point, so the company says the upgrade is designed to facilitate migration between the two.

The upgrade package enables engineers to turn a floating-point design built in Simulink, Stateflow, Embedded MATLAB functions, Signal Processing Blockset, and Video and Image Processing Blockset into a fixed-point design based on input data ranges and target hardware characteristics.

The new version can be used with The MathWorks Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder to generate bit-accurate production code from fixed-point models, ensuring the implemented design conforms to simulation performance. Code can be generated for signals and parameters with word sizes from one to 128 bits, accelerating simulation modes and enabling embedded code deployment. With Simulink Fixed Point 6, designers can develop and implement algorithms for DSPs and microprocessors that offer large accumulator and integer word sizes for high degrees of numerical range and precision.

The Fixed Point Advisor within the upgrade converts a design from a floating-point model to fixed-point using an automated system conversion to optimized workflows in shorter time spans, which the company claims typically in hours rather than days.

Simulink Fixed Point 6 is now available for the Microsoft Windows, Solaris, Linux, and Macintosh platforms, starting at $1,000. For further information, visit: http://www.mathworks.com/products/simfixed/