IDE puts FPGA soft core to multiprocessor duties

Adveda is supporting Altera's Nios II soft-core embedded processor within its Univers multiprocessor integrated development environment (IDE).

Adveda is supporting Altera's Nios II soft-core embedded processor within its Univers multiprocessor integrated development environment (IDE).

Now, thousands of designers using Nios II processor have access to the unique simulation and debug features of Univers, which will dramatically improve the realisation time of their embedded systems and simplify the implementation of multiprocessor systems targeting Altera's FPGAs and structured ASICs.

The heart of the Univers tools is a software IDE with unique debug capabilities setup to support multiprocessor designs including its peripherals.

The new Univers ISS (instruction set simulator) model of the Nios II processor supports these debug features.

Adveda's debugger gives the designer full visibility and full controllability of the internal nodes.

Some unique debug features include: simultaneous simulation (and debugging) of more Nios processors (or other processors, eg an ARM7TDMI) in multiprocessor applications including all hardware-peripherals in one unified simulation environment.

If a location (register, memory cell or variable) with an unexpected value is found during debugging, Univers will identify the effected source code, leaving no room for speculation and saving very valuable time.

Breakpoints and watchpoints can be set at any place in the source code, assembly code, registers or memory locations without affecting the simulation speed and will stop all processors at the same time.

When a simulation has stopped (eg.

by a breakpoint in an error routine), the user has the capability to simulate backwards through the source code, make a change and continue the simulation.

Univers offers a unified verification solution, which enables simulation of embedded software in conjunction with hardware peripherals connected to the processors.

Designers can use the RTL code of these hardware peripherals and the Univers RTL modeller will automatically create a fast simulation model which will run typically 10 to 100 times faster than an RTL simulator.

Moreover, these fast RTL models can be seamlessly attached to the Univers ISS models and allow to verify the embedded software in combination with the exact representation of the peripherals at a very high simulation speed.

This will significantly improve the "first-time-right" for such designs.

An example of the speed of the RTL models, the VHDL code of the Nios II processor itself runs at 95kHz.

"As FPGA designs are rapidly becoming as complex as ASIC designs, Adveda also decided to penetrate the FPGA market", said Cor Schepens, CEO of Adveda.

"With the Nios II processor, Altera provides its customers with the option to quickly build very complex multiprocessor embedded systems on an FPGA".

"Such systems require good simulation tools, as only debugging the embedded software in a prototype board is absolutely inadequate".

"The unique simulation and debug capabilities of Adveda's Univers toolset will allow our customers to dramatically improve the design time of the embedded software", said Chris Balough, Director of Software and Nios Marketing at Altera.

"Adveda's accelerated RTL models further provide our customers with the ability to debug with full visibility and full controllability their software by using their own set of hardware peripherals".

Univers pricing starts at Eur 1395 ($1825) and it contains a free ISS model of the Nios II/e processor, when bought before 1st June 2005.

An evaluation copy of the Univers software can be downloaded from the Adveda website.

The Nios II processor is available royalty-free from Altera as part of development kits featuring Cyclone, Stratix, and Stratix II FPGAs and upcoming Cyclone II development kits.

A downloadable evaluation version is available from the Altera website.

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