Fixed-Point Blockset

Why Use the Fixed-Point Blockset?

The Fixed-Point Blockset bridges the gap between designing a dynamic system and implementing it on fixed-point digital hardware. To do this, the blockset provides basic fixed-point Simulink building blocks that are used to design and simulate dynamic systems using fixed-point arithmetic. With the Fixed-Point Blockset, you can:

• Use fixed-point arithmetic to develop and simulate fixed-point Simulink models.
• Change the fixed-point data type, scaling, rounding mode, or overflow handling mode while the model is simulating. This allows you to explore issues related to numerical overflow, quantization errors, and computational noise.
• Generate fixed-point model code ready for execution on a floating-point processor. This allows you to emulate the effects of fixed-point arithmetic in a floating-point rapid prototyping system.
• Generate fixed-point model code ready for execution on a fixed-point processor.
• Modify or add new fixed-point blocks. Source code is provided for all fixed-point blocks; you will need one of the C compilers supported by the mex utility.

The Fixed-Point Blockset addresses the issues related to using fixed-point single instruction, single data stream processors. Extensions to multiple instruction, multiple data stream processing units can be made. However, hardware consisting of multiple instruction or multiple data streams generally also has floating-point support.

Why Use Fixed-Point Hardware?

The Development Cycle