CoWare tailors system-level tools to developers, users

CoWare tailors system-level tools to developers, users
By Michael Santarini, EE Times
May 20, 2002 (3:12 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020520S0042

SAN MATEO, Calif. — CoWare Inc. has introduced two new products to replace its N2C hardware-software co-design tool, tailored to the needs of system integrators, firmware developers and verification engineers.

"This is the first release in which we are tailoring our N2C technology to slightly different audiences," said Pete Hardee, director or product marketing at CoWare. "As system-level design matures, people want to adapt different pieces of the technology. For example, there is a need for an extremely capable tool for system architects and people involved in creating platforms, and a need for another tool for people who use those platforms."

CoWare's N2C System Designer is targeted at users of platforms, Hardee said. The tool allows system verifiers and firmware developers to integrate hardware and software earlier in the system-on-chip design process, he said.

The tool has all the verification features of the first-generation N2C System, plus such additional features as support for SystemC 2.0.

CoWare has made three significant improvements to N2C System Designer, Hardee said.

Usability has been improved so that users are no longer required to translate HDL into C or to adjust existing C code.

CoWare has also added analysis features that allow software developers to control the tool using a familiar "C-looking" interface, Hardee said. "The way we look at hardware-software co-simulation you can either be software-centric or hardware-centric," he said. "You can have a C-based environment that runs HDL models or have an HDL-based environment that runs C models."

N2C System Designer is also able to simulate complex platforms generated by the company's new product for platform designers, the N2C Advanced System Designer. The N2C Advanced System Designer has all the features of N2C System Designer, plus the full suite of CoWare's implementation tools, Hard ee said.

N2C Advanced System Designer also includes complex bus analysis capacities and an upgraded Interface Synthesis capability. The latter feature synthesizes the bus interconnect matrixes and crossbar switches at the heart of multilayer buses like ARM Ltd.'s Amba 2.0 on-chip interconnect and STMicroelectronics' STBus.

Hardee declined to cite pricing for the two new N2C configurations.