|
Axis Systems Announces Hardware/Software Co-Verification Product Family
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 2001--
Axis Systems Inc. Monday announced the Xpert(TM) family of
hardware/software (HW/SW) co-verification products, which enable
software designers to debug embedded system software before hardware
prototypes are available.
The new product family increases verification productivity for
both software and hardware designers and improves their confidence
that the system will work the first time.
The Xpert family of products offers three critical capabilities
that have never been available before: software debugging with
accelerated register-transfer level (RTL) processor models, instant
tracing of software code execution, and instant resuming of software
execution from any point in time.
``We're delivering the verification environment needed for the next
generation of electronic designs,'' said Mike Tsai, president and CEO
of Axis Systems. ``The use of embedded systems, especially those based
on system-on-a-chip (SoC), is rapidly growing and creating high demand
for an effective hardware/software co-verification solution.''
Xpert extends Axis' patented ReConfigurable Computing (RCC)
technology from its initial applications in logic simulation,
simulation acceleration, and system emulation to hardware/software
co-verification and embedded software debugging. With more than 30
tape-outs, chip designers have been using RCC successfully for more
than three years to verify hardware designs.
The Xpert co-verification product family brings together the
entire embedded system design team -- the hardware and the software
engineers -- and gives them a single platform with the fastest
co-verification and debugging capabilities that meet their needs. With
Xpert, hardware and software designers can work concurrently,
resulting in faster system integration with minimal problems.
``Logic simulation speed and the microprocessor modeling effort
have limited the use of co-verification,'' said Jason Andrews, product
marketing manager at Axis Systems. ``Axis is delivering a true
system-level verification platform with the performance and debugging
features required by embedded software engineers.''
Software Debugging with Accelerated RTL Processor Models
RTL models represent the actual implementation of the processors
and are the most accurate models available, providing the most
accurate verification possible. Typically, design engineers doing
hardware verification use RTL models to test the interaction of the
processor with rest of the logic. Xpert extends the use of RTL models
to allow software engineers to debug their code executing on the
processor model.
Due to performance, control and visibility issues, traditional
co-verification tools have had little success in using the RTL models
for HW/SW co-verification. With Xpert, the RTL model of an embedded
processor is accelerated using Axis' RCC technology. This delivers not
only the most accurate verification, but also the simulation cycles
needed for running actual software on the RTL representation of the
hardware.
Existing HW/SW co-verification tools have limited control over the
execution of software and visibility for effective software debugging.
Axis' RCC technology uses an event-based algorithm, which enables
users to ``single step'' their code and provides them with higher degree
of control over the processor execution.
Unlike solutions based on JTAG, Xpert uses a single-process
architecture with a direct connection between the hardware and
software verification environments. This allows complete design
visibility including access to the processor's internal registers,
without any performance overhead.
Instant Tracing of Software Execution
Hardware designers primarily use post-processing debugging methods
to view logic simulation results in a waveform viewer or source-code
debugger. With Xpert's Instant Trace(TM) capability, software
designers can go back to any point in software execution, after
simulation or emulation has been completed, and trace the execution
order of their code.
For multi-processor designs, Instant Trace improves software
debugging by providing a correlated view of each processor. Other
debugging methods use software breakpoints, which can change the
timing and can make software execution control difficult.
Software engineers benefit in two ways from Instant Trace: it's
fast, because the data is already available from the previous
co-verification run; and it doesn't tie up hardware resources.
Software designers can observe information that is meaningful to them,
such as the function call stack and when exception handlers are
executed.
Instant Resuming of Software Execution from Any Point in Time
While software designers are debugging, they often need to inspect
and change the contents of memory and see the effects of the changes
on software execution. Without Xpert, they have to restart
co-verification from the beginning and re-execute their code, which is
an inefficient use of their time.
With Xpert's Instant Resume(TM) feature, they can go to any point
in software execution time, view or change the memory contents, and
continue running. They no longer have to adjust breakpoint locations
and restart simulation from the beginning. This capability increases
debugging productivity by eliminating hours of simulation time.
When pinpointing problems in the software code, designers need to
correlate the software execution with hardware simulation. Xpert's
software debugging views provide both the program counter and register
values as well as corresponding hardware simulation time so that both
software and hardware engineers can effectively debug their code and
communicate with each other.
Integrating Embedded System Design Tools Increases Productivity
For effective hardware-software co-verification of embedded
systems, designers need a single platform that provides access to
embedded processor models with the fastest hardware verification
possible and a debugging environment that meets the needs of both
software and hardware engineers. Xpert delivers on this need with a
high performance integrated platform and innovative debugging
capabilities.
The first processor model for Xpert will be announced on June 18
at the Design Automation Conference in Las Vegas, along with pricing
and availability.
About Axis Systems
Axis Systems Inc. offers high-performance verification platforms
for the hardware and software development of complex electronic system
and system-on-a-chip designs. Axis' products help increase confidence
in new designs, improve overall verification productivity and shorten
time to market.
On a single platform and with one design database, Axis' patented
ReConfigurable Computing (RCC) technology provides software
simulation, accelerated simulation, system emulation and
hardware/software co-verification. Axis' verification products go ``way
beyond fast'' -- they not only run fast, but also help customers
identify and isolate bugs in a design faster than any other tool on
the market.
Customers include the world's leading networking and multimedia
companies. Axis has headquarters at 209 Java Drive, Sunnyvale, Calif.
94089. To learn more about Axis, visit www.axiscorp.com.
Contact:
Axis Systems
Yukari Chin, 408/588-2000
yukari@axiscorp.com
or
Cayenne Communication
Lois DuBois, 650/854-5485
lois.dubois@cayennecom.com
|
|
CaféTalk |
