Aptix Corp., ARM Ltd. and Agilent Technologies Inc. have collaborated on a validation platform for embedded designs based on the ARM MPU core. Their product trio for designers who need "out of the box" design validation capabilities lets "embedded-system designers debug their design, both hardware and software, in a real-time environment," said Aidan Herbert, director of business development at Aptix.
The companies said the platform reduces design validation time from months to days. "The solution allows mutual customers to shed weeks, even months, off their development time," said Amr Mohsen, Aptix's chairman and CEO. "It gives embedded designers debuggability and visibility into all the internal nodes and registers. They can get to those trigger points very quickly, near real-time, with the platform running at 20 MHz-a lot faster than simulation or hardware acceleration products."
Mohsen said the three companies each chipped in their respective technologies and links to form the platform; customers must license a System Explorer emulation system and a new ARM interface from Aptix; obtain an ARM core license, the appropriate ARM Integration board with core modules and software from ARM; and license the 16702B logic analyzer mainframe and the Trace Port Analyzer from Agilent.
The Agilent systems are key to the usefulness of the platform, said Doug Kern, corporate applications manager at Aptix. Trace Port Analyzer's in/out feature for cross-triggering between hardware and software allows hardware triggers to cause software breakpoints, he said, and software breakpoints to trigger the 16702B logic analyzer and view the ARM core's execution and the state of the system-on-chip design's logic.
"We've used the logic analyzer with System Explorer for a while now," said Kern. "What's new is that Agilent's Trace Port Analyzer, which connects into the ARM core module, brings out the visibility of the core module." The companies said the platform can handle DSP cores and bus interfaces, as well as hardware, software and existing and future ARM processor cores.
Each ARM Integrator evaluation board supports up to four ARM core modules, and each System Explorer from Aptix can accommodate 10 boards. Aptix's Software Integration Station, sold separately, enables software development, Kern said.
Platform components are available now. System Explorer starts at $150,000, and the Software Integration Station at $75,000. The ARM Integrator platform starts at $3,000, and Agilent logic analyzers range from $8,000 to $35,000. For details, visitwww.aptix.com.
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Sonics Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) is offering a wrapper for integrating MIPS Technologies' MIPS32 4Kc processor core with the Sonics MicroNetwork. The wrapper connects the 4Kc core with fully validated bridge logic that links its native interface to the Open Core Protocol. The resulting OCP-compliant solution, Sonics said, yields significant benefits from the plug-and-play integration delivered by the MicroNetwork. The solution, which targets MIPS customers assembling multiple intellectual-property cores into their SoC designs, claims to significantly shorten time-to-integration thanks to the reuse-without-rework benefits of socket-based design made possible by the OCP standard.
Along with the OCP-compliant interface for the 4Kc core, Sonics said it has developed a complete SoC integration solution that covers logic implementation and synthesis scripts. The offerings are available now from Sonics at no charge to 4Kc core licensees. Sonics also offers design services for MicroNetwork customers that need help adapting proprietary or commercial cores for OCP compliance. For further information, see www.sonicsinc.com.
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