Carbon Design Systems Unveils Carbon Model Studio

Update: ARM to Offer Cycle-Accurate Virtual Prototyping for Complex SoCs Through an Asset Acquisition from Carbon Design Systems (October 20, 2015)

Complete Solution for Automatic Generation, Validation, Implementation of Pre-Silicon Hardware-Accurate Software Models

WALTHAM, Mass. -- October 1, 2007 -- Carbon Design Systems(TM) today announced availability of Carbon Model Studio, a solution for the automatic generation, validation and implementation of hardware-accurate software models, enabling a design team to begin software development and debug before silicon.

"Accurate models are the foundation upon which any successful virtual platform is built," states Bill Neifert, chief technical officer (CTO) at Carbon Design Systems. "Model Studio is enabling our customers to deliver first-pass system success by quickly generating models that can plug into the virtual platform environment of their choice."

Carbon Model Studio was designed for the entire design team, from system architects and software engineers to hardware designers and third-party intellectual property (IP) providers. System architects can use Carbon Model Studio for architectural analysis and profiling. Software engineers can develop and debug embedded software, firmware, drivers and diagnostics concurrent with hardware development. Additionally, Carbon Models can be securely distributed to third-party partners to accelerate adoption of an IP provider's technology devices.

Accurate Models Drive Success

With today's system-on-chip (SoC) designs, close to 80% of the design is existing IP, either reused from previous projects or provided by a third-party vendor. Typically, these blocks are register transfer level (RTL) code with no corresponding model for use in virtual platforms. The development of high-level models of this IP, as well as a design team's newly developed IP, means that resources must be allocated to hand-develop and validate models for the virtual platform.

Carbon Model Studio eliminates the need for handcoding models of hardware because "Carbonized" models of the IP are created from their VHDL and Verilog descriptions. Its graphical interface and development environment manages all of the data from design files and build tasks. Source browsing, error navigation and project management offer a way to pinpoint problems, as well as the ability to manage different IP builds and configurations. When a change is made to the model, all of the variants can be regenerated from a single source with a single command.

The software provides drag-and-drop mapping from the cycle- and pin-level RTL code to transaction-level interfaces of electronic system level (ESL) environments. The result is an accurate model for analysis and debug, and interfaces required for drop-in access from system environments. Carbon Model Studio's existing platform integrations include RealView® SoC Designer from ARM®, Platform Architect design environment from CoWare®, and OSCI SystemC.

With this versatility, design teams have a single model common to all environments. Software engineers can focus on a "databook" view of the device for programming. Architects have access to buses, interfaces and transactions, and hardware designers have full debug ability and visibility into RTL code, including waveform dumping. Because the model is common, a design team can work on solving problems, instead of porting issues across environments.

Pricing and Availability

Carbon Model Studio will begin shipping in late October and will run on Solaris and PC platforms running Linux and Windows. Pricing for the complete model-generation and execution solution is "use-model" dependent and starts at $82,500. Details can be found at: www.carbondesignsystems.com.

About Carbon Design Systems

Carbon is the leading supplier of system-level tools to automatically create, validate and deploy software models generated from Verilog and/or VHDL descriptions. Carbon's models are used in conjunction with SystemC simulation platforms to enable architecture profiling and software validation in parallel with hardware development. Problems can be found and resolved early in the design cycle, rather than waiting for prototypes to be built or silicon to be delivered. Its solutions are based on open industry standards, including SystemC, SCML, Verilog, VHDL, OSCI TLM, MDI, CASI, CADI and CAPI. Carbon's customers are systems, semiconductor, and IP companies that focus on communications, networking, and consumer electronics. Carbon is headquartered at 375 Totten Pond Road, Waltham, Mass., 02451. Telephone: (781) 890-1500. Facsimile: (781) 890-1711.Web site: www.carbondesignsystems.com.