Denali to Work With The SPIRIT Consortium on Effort to Address Control Registers

Will Help Ensure Alignment Between SystemRDL Language and IP-XACT(TM) From The SPIRIT Consortium PALO ALTO, Calif. -- July 26, 2006 -- Denali Software today announced its intent to work with The SPIRIT Consortium on further development of IP-XACT(TM) to ensure that The Consortium data model is aligned with SystemRDL(TM), the system description language for system-on-chip (SoC) design registers.

Alignment of SystemRDL with IP-XACT enables consistent specification and management of the control register space in chip designs and IP blocks. It ensures that designers can use tools that conform to The SPIRIT Consortium specification to speed IP integration and increase design efficiency for large SoC designs.

SystemRDL is used by design, verification, software and firmware engineers to specify and describe control registers, pervasive and ubiquitous elements of intellectual property (IP) and SoC designs. Control registers exist in all semiconductor chips and IP products, often numbering in the thousands. These registers store key data that define the chip's operation and usually represent the largest portion of the IP specification or programmers guide.

The IP-XACT specification describes an XML metadata schema for describing IP design blocks and an application programming interface (API) to provide tool access to the schema. The schema provides a standard way to make IP compatible with automated integration techniques and enables tools to automatically interpret, configure, integrate and manipulate IP blocks delivered with metadata that conforms to the standard.

"Denali's help in aligning SystemRDL and IP-XACT will bring unique value to the both organizations," says Ralph von Vignau, chairman of The SPIRIT Consortium. "Our goal is to deploy IP and tool standards to enable more efficient SoC design. Alignment with related languages such as SystemRDL makes it easier for developers to embrace IP-XACT gains in productivity for complex SoC design."

"The SPIRIT Consortium is making a valuable contribution to IP reuse through the IP-XACT specification," adds Mark Gogolewski, chief technology officer for Denali. "We look forward to working with the SPIRIT Consortium and view this as an important first step towards converging SystemRDL roadmap with IP-XACT. We are also committed to providing customers with the ability to use our Blueprint SystemRDL compiler to read and write XML that conforms to the IP-XACT specification, and automatically generate the various views for design, verification, and software development."

About Denali Blueprint

Blueprint(TM) is an ESL tool in use by design, verification, software and firmware engineers to automate the creation and management of control registers and all associated models, design views and documentation. From a SystemRDL or The SPIRIT Consortium IP-XACT input, Blueprint generates various outputs for hardware design, software development, verification and documentation.

For design, Blueprint produces synthesizable Verilog, SystemVerilog or VHDL code for control registers and also generates Open Verification Library (OVL) assertions that ensure the correct operation of the register and generated logic. For functional verification, Blueprint outputs models of the registers for use in C/C++, SystemC, OpenVERA, 'e', Verilog, and SystemVerilog. For software, Blueprint generates headers, classes with access methods and a complete Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) to enable software developers to be productive as soon as the architecture is defined and isolate them from low-level design changes.

Additionally, Blueprint generates test cases for pre- and post-silicon validation of the generated logic. For documentation, Blueprint outputs files compatible with user templates for Framemaker, MS-Word, HTML, XML or SGML based documentation. More information on Blueprint is available online at: http://www.denali.com/blueprint .

About Denali

Denali Software Inc. is the world's leading provider of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and Intellectual Property (IP) products for design and verification of semiconductor chip interfaces. Denali's Databahn(TM) products provide optimal control and data throughput for external DRAM, PCI Express and NAND Flash memory devices. Spectra(TM) is a fully featured flash file system for NAND memory systems. PureSpec(TM) and MMAV(TM) verification IP products support all standard interfaces, including DRAM, Flash, PCI Express, AMBA, USB, Ethernet, Serial ATA, and CE-ATA. Denali's Blueprint(TM) SystemRDL compiler provides a complete solution for on-chip register specification and management. For more information, visit Denali at http://www.denali.com , call 650-461-7200 or email info@denali.com.