Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Celoxica | Subject: Nexus-PDK
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 25 September 2002
Platform-based coverification solution
The Nexus-PDK coverification solution is designed to dramatically shorten the verification cycle for embedded systems.
The Nexus-PDK coverification solution is designed to dramatically shorten the verification cycle for embedded systems Nexus-PDK provides the hub of a system coverification environment by performing high-level simulations of embedded platforms and cosimulating hardware and software implementations with popular third-party ISS and RTL tools
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 Dec 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Coverification solution takes SystemC onboard
Celoxica has incorporated support for SystemC language cosimulation in its Nexus-PDK coverification solution.
FPGAs updated over the web
Celoxica has announced the DK1 design suite, software that enables a fundamentally new approach to the design of electronic hardware.
The Nexus-PDK solution also enables designers to quickly develop high-level embedded platform designs using a built-in platform developer's kit.
As system complexity increases, functional verification has emerged as a primary design bottleneck.
In today's systems, the functional verification strategy must address both hardware and software implementations.
Further reading
Celoxica offers a free go at FPGA design
Celoxica DK1 Eval is a free evaluation version of the Celoxica DK1 design suite that is restricted to compilations for simulation only, with no EDIF or VHDL output capability.
Design suite extended to latest FPGAs
Celoxica has extended its DK1 design suite for the rapid design of reconfigurable hardware to support Xilinx Virtex II customers.
Board helps with small to medium FPGA prototyping
New from Celoxica, the RC100 stand-alone development board provides a rapid prototyping platform for small- to medium-sized FPGA designs.
However, most current design flows treat verification as a back-end process.
In addition, hardware and software are treated as separate design efforts, leaving system integration and verification until long after important partitioning decisions have been set in stone.
No wonder Gary Smith, Dataquest's chief EDA analyst pronounced: "Today the biggest challenge in EDA is to resolve the incompatibility of the hardware design methodology and the software design methodology".
The Nexus-PDK solution addresses the hardware/software methodology divide by enabling system designers to first model platforms of their system using C-based high-level software languages, and then verifying those embedded platforms in a verification environment with cosimulation capability.
The platform developer's kit (PDK) provided with the tool supplies cores and API standards supporting platform development at high levels of abstraction.
A platform abstraction layer provides the platform developer with technology-independent interfaces to external physical devices such as memory, data ports, displays and video I/O.
In addition, a data streaming manager provides an API to simplify the partitioning and interaction of system functionality between software applications on a microprocessor, and those functions implemented in custom hardware.
The Nexus-PDK solution also includes a platform support library containing prebuilt functions that aide in the rapid development of embedded platforms.
"Until now addressing the verification challenge at the system level has been an unrealised goal", said Phil Bishop, CEO of Celoxica.
"The Nexus-PDK solution provides both the advanced coverification environment and the means to quickly develop the models that will make platform-based design practical for all types of systems.
And integration with the DK design suite provides a proven and repeatable path to hardware implementation once the functionality is verified".
The Nexus-PDK coverification solution is integrated with Celoxica's DK design suite to allow designers to automatically map high-level C-based models into reprogrammable hardware.
The DK software is used by over 100 companies worldwide to automatically implement device optimised hardware from C-based high-level descriptions written in Handel-C, a hardware implementation superset of ANSI-C.
The Nexus-PDK coverification solution makes use of proven DK technology to extend the advantages of software methodologies using multiple high-level design languages to the problem of verifying complex systems.
Pricing for the Nexus-PDK coverification solution starts with a license fee of US $25,000 based on a one-year, floating term license.
This includes the Nexus-PDK verification environment with cosimulation capability, and the platform developer's kit for rapid embedded platform development.
The software is available for computing platforms with Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Design verification services and applications consulting are available to assist customers in adopting a software-compiled system design verification strategy.
• Celoxica: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
