CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

12 January 2005

Product News

ARC International and Magma Deliver Customer-Proven Reference Methodology for the ARC 600 Configurable Microprocessor Core

Magma® Design Automation Inc . and ARC International announced the availability of a validated reference methodology for the ARCT 600 configurable microprocessor core. The reference methodology, available from Magma, has been implemented in a 0.13-micron design flow and was instrumental in helping a mutual customer surpass many of their design goals in less than one week.

Magma's ARC 600 reference methodology is based on the Magma Blast CreateT RTL-to-placed gates, Blast PlanT Pro hierarchical design, and the Blast Fusion® physical design solutions. It includes flow documentation, floorplanning information, tool scripts and make files. Additionally, ARC International has completed the Magma IP verification process for the ARC 600 and has been added to the growing list of "Magma-Ready" IP providers.

"Many of our customers are using ARC for high-volume consumer applications because of significant size and power savings that can be realized with our configurable technology," said Derek Meyer, vice president of marketing at ARC International. "By partnering with Magma, a leader in the EDA industry, we are ensuring customers also can tune their ARC-based designs throughout the entire SOC creation process."

"With the continuing increase in chip complexity and rising development costs, designers are incorporating more intellectual property (IP) blocks into their system-on-chip designs, rather than developing the entire chip from scratch," said Michael Ma, vice president, Foundry and IP Relationships for Magma. "By working with ARC, a leading IP provider, we can develop methodologies and verify that their cores can be efficiently implemented in Magma's flow. This reference flow can enable our mutual customers to take their core-based designs in a single-pass flow from RTL directly to placement and routing without leaving the Magma system, eliminating iterations and saving time and effort."

Availability of the Reference Methodology

Users of the ARC 600 core can acquire the Magma reference methodology and the relevant synthesis scripts and sample floorplanning information from Magma. Support for the reference methodology is also provided by Magma.

The ARC 600 is a configurable and extendible processor core that enables customers to implement a low-power, low-cost solution while meeting their performance requirements. At the heart of the ARC 600 is a 32-bit five-stage RISC architecture that is available with DSP extensions. The ARC 600 processor incorporates a variety of low-power features, making it an ideal solution for portable consumer devices.

Magma has designed comprehensive soft and hard IP verification processes to enable fast deployment of partner IP products in IC designs. Through the MagmaTies program, partners are given access to Magma software, allowing them to meet the necessary requirements. To qualify, soft IP providers must support Blast CreateT with industry-standard Verilog and VHDL formats and the most popular synthesis pragmas. They must also be able to import constraints and verify the quality of results (QoR), perform formal verification against a known good netlist, validate the timing using a static timing analyzer and create a script and documentation for the product.

ARC International provides low-power, high-performance 32-bit configurable CPU/DSP processor cores, subsystems, real-time operating systems and development tools for embedded system design. ARC's configurable and extendible cores assist customers in the development of next generation digital media, consumer and communications devices, resulting in lower cost, higher performance SOC products.

 

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