Systems such as wireless handsets include an integrated System-On-Chip (SoC) often based on a multi-core architecture, with at least one Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and one Micro Controller Unit (MCU) core. Validating the application and modem software that runs on these devices is a lengthy task. Moreover, the earlier software developers can access a realistic platform of the system, the earlier they can validate their software and ship a product. Synopsys virtual platform enables pre-silicon software development, which allows software developers to develop and test software earlier, thus reducing time-to-market. A small fee may be required.
Jul 31, 2009

Current and future processor chips will comprise tens to thousands of cores and specialized hardware acceleration to achieve performance within power budgets. Multicore presents new challenges to programmers, including finding and implementing parallelism, dealing with debugging deadlocks and race conditions (that is, conditions that occur when one or more software tasks attempt to access shared program variables without proper synchronization), and eliminating performance bottlenecks.
Apr 01, 2009

For about a decade, the design community has been working toward enabling pre-silicon software development through the virtualization of embedded hardware into so-called "virtual platforms."
Jun 24, 2008

If you talk to vendors of electronic system-level (ESL) design tools, you’ll find that many have a unique approach to this evolving technology. Some vendors talk of virtual platforms, others focus on synthesis and simulation, and still others tout design services that help engineers develop systems at a very high level of abstraction.
May 12, 2008

During the past three decades, the mainstream design entry for semiconductor-design has steadily evolved from layout, to transistors, to gates, and, most recently, to the register-transfer level (RTL). Each time the complexity at one level became unmanageable, four crucial steps were required to enable the shift to the next higher level.
May 12, 2008

Even though the phrase “electronic system-level design” (ESL) is only a few years old, the promise of being able to do high-level design, push a button and output both the system software and a gate-level netlist has been the siren song of designers for at least a decade. We’re definitely not there yet, but we’re closer than you may realize.
May 10, 2008

With the number of on-chip processors set to explode, software-development issues loom for design teams. Yet D&V methodologies may evolve to avert any stumbling over parallelism
Apr 24, 2008

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Panelists at the Multicore Expo here April 2 agreed that standards are needed to ensure model interoperability for virtual platforms, but disagreed over the best way to achieve them. Simon Davidmann, Imperas CEO, advocated his company's open-source approach, while others endorsed standards based on SystemC.
Apr 07, 2008

A chip is of little use without its software. The semiconductor industry realizes this and is more interested than ever in delivering both silicon and software at the same time. Texas Instruments has combined a number of strategies to reduce software integration time from around 18 months to just one to two months. Kalyan Chakravadhanula, Platform Validation Engineer with TI, explains how his team has been working successfully with Synopsys and used DesignWare® Virtual Platform to validate a complex system-on-chip based on TI's OMAP™ platform.
Apr 02, 2008

As research pushes for better programming models for multiprocessor and multicore (MC) embedded systems, virtual platforms solve one of today's biggest challenges in these systems: software debugging and validation.
Feb 11, 2008

Prediction is always a risky business, but in the world of chip and system design, there are some new methodologies, tools, and challenges that are clearly going to impact design and verification. This article examines those developments in order to identify ten top trends for 2008.
Jan 02, 2008

In part one of this article, we looked at the status of virtual platform methodology adoption in system and system-on-chip (SoC) design companies including AMCC, Freescale, General Dynamics, Infineon, Sarnoff, STMicroelectronics and Wind River. We now ask about some of the factors that influence the methodology’s proliferation, such as interoperability standards, component and intellectual property (IP) models, and virtual platform technology.
Jan 02, 2008

EDA vendors view market as big growth opportunity, but gaining a firm foothold is proving harder than expected. Wireless may look like a vast, untapped market opportunity for EDA vendors, but so far it hasn't proved to be a particularly lucrative one.
Dec 01, 2007

A funny thing happened on the way to 45 nm. Verification- once the sleepy backwater arena of the EDA industry- suddenly became massively important. "Verification effort increases exponentially when design size increases linearly," explains Tom Borgstrom, Director of Solutions Marketing at Synopsys.
Nov 01, 2007

Digital wireless communication systems are becoming increasingly complex to implement due to two complementary and often competing requirements: high throughput and reliable system performance. There are few products where this is more evident than devices that depend on wireless communications to transmit data.
Jun 01, 2007