CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
8 November 2004
Product News
New Release of CoWare ConvergenSC Speeds Adoption Of Electronic System Level-ESL-Design; Open Environment Enables Rapid Design of SoC Platforms and Derivatives
CoWare® Inc. announced a major new release of its SystemC-based ConvergenSCT system-on-chip (SoC) design tools to speed adoption of electronic system level (ESL) design methodologies by system designers and architects. The release combines new features that enable faster modeling and debug of IP models, platform subsystems, and SoC designs in SystemC, with an open environment that eases integration of internal tools and IP into the system-level flow. This enables more designers to gain the benefits of ESL solutions for SoC platform development projects and their re-use.
ConvergenSC now features a powerful SystemC integrated development and debug environment (IDE) based on Eclipse adding SystemC graphical debugging and a managed builds process to ConvergenSC's fast SystemC simulator and thread-aware debugging engine. Because Eclipse is open, users can easily integrate Eclipse plug-ins into their ConvergenSC environment. In addition, ConvergenSC now fully supports the latest release from OSCI, SystemC version 2.1.
"ConvergenSC's powerful environment has enabled us to begin the transition from an RTL-only methodology to designing at a higher level of abstraction in SystemC," said Manoj Bhatnagar, principal engineer for CPE system architecture at Centillium Communications, Inc. "The Eclipse-based SystemC IDE is very feature rich, and it provided production quality capabilities needed for hardware/software development. The Eclipse IDE enabled us to be productive immediately while adopting SystemC and ESL for the first time."
Platform subsystems, consisting of IP blocks and software tailored for specific domains, are emerging as the industry's new definition of IP. As interactions between hardware and software become more complex, ESL design tools are essential to designing and re-using these platform subsystems. With this new release, ConvergenSC adds capabilities that ease integration of user IP and enable re-use of platforms in derivative designs, magnifying the benefits of ESL methods that include:
• SystemC 2.1 and open support for user TLM specifications
• Hierarchical platform development
• Export of fixed platform subsystems
• Import of subsystems for SoC assembly and extension
Using these capabilities, platform providers can create system-level models of platform subsystems for their customers' rapid evaluation, customization, and design-in.
"With the latest release of ConvergenSC, platform providers and their customers have a solution for design and debug with an expanded model library, standards support, and open tool architecture for the industry's broadest library of SystemC IP," said Mark Milligan, vice president of marketing, CoWare. "The result is more efficient modeling and reuse of IP and platform subsystems to greatly reduce development time and cost."
ConvergenSC 2004.2 is available immediately. Existing customers receive the new release as part of their subscription. For pricing information, contact your local sales office or visit http://www.coware.com .
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