Mentor Graphics Corp., today ushered in a new era of emulation by announcing new applications for the Veloce® emulation platform. The new Veloce Apps—Veloce Deterministic ICE, Veloce DFT and Veloce FastPath—overcome critical system-level verification challenges in complex SoC and system designs. They run on an upgraded Veloce OS3 operating system that significantly accelerates design compile cycles, gate-level flows, and the time it takes to review results ("time to visibility"). The combination of Veloce Apps on Veloce OS3 puts more capabilities into the hands of more engineers more quickly than hardware-centric strategies.
Each of the new Veloce Apps addresses a specific verification issue:
- Veloce Deterministic ICE overcomes unpredictability in ICE environments by adding 100 percent visibility and repeatability for debug, and provides access to other 'virtual-based' use models;
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Veloce DFT accelerates Design for Test (DFT) verification prior to tape-out to minimize the risk of catastrophic failure, and significantly reduces run times when verifying designs after DFT insertion; and
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Veloce FastPath optimizes emulation performance when verifying large multi-clock SoC designs by enabling faster model execution speed.
These new Veloce Apps join Veloce Power, Veloce Enterprise Server and other apps in an expanding arsenal of software innovations for the Veloce emulation platform. Mentor will continue to expand the library of Veloce Apps to introduce new ways to ensure designs meet their functional and performance specifications on schedule.
The Veloce OS operating system adds software programmability and resource management to the Veloce platform, making it easier to add new use models that increase the ROI of the emulator. The recent upgrade of Veloce OS3 covers several innovations:
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Integration of new High Performance Computing platforms cuts compile time by 50 percent.
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A faster gate-level flow operates as "plug-and-play"—able to accept flat or hierarchical designs. This flow reduces the amount of memory needed for compilation, which improves performance. By making it easier to load and verify gate-level designs, the new flow improves confidence in silicon fidelity.
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The combination of software and hardware improvements spanning the run time and debug cycles achieves 200 percent faster time-to-visibility.
These new Veloce emulation capabilities demonstrate how innovative software, running on powerful, qualified hardware and an extensible operating system, can target design risks faster than hardware-centric strategies. As emulation enters its fourth decade and expands across mainstream markets, the Veloce emulation platform has become a powerful resource across a range of hardware, software and system verification flows.
"Mentor continues to demonstrate its technology leadership through its application-based strategy for the Veloce emulation platform," said Eric Selosse, vice president and general manager of the Mentor Emulation Division. "These latest innovations accelerate overall verification throughput performance for our customers. The focus on software apps for specific SoC and system-level challenges is driving the future of emulation."
The Veloce emulation platform is a core technology in the Mentor® Enterprise Verification Platform™ (EVP) – a platform that boosts productivity in ASIC and SoC functional verification by combining advanced verification technologies in a comprehensive platform.
Now considered among the most versatile and powerful of verification tools, project teams use emulation for hardware debugging, hardware/software co-verification or integration, system-level prototyping, low-power verification and power estimation and performance characterization.
