MIT OpenCourseWare Adds Course on Bluespec Methodology; ESL Synthesis Instruction Now Available to Educators, Self-Learners, Students
WALTHAM, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jan. 5, 2006—
MIT's web-based publishing initiative OpenCourseWare
(MIT OCW) today added course material that teaches a new methodology
for the design of multi-million gate integrated circuits (ICs). The
backbone of the course is Bluespec Inc.'s electronic system level
(ESL) synthesis software, the only ESL synthesis solution for control
logic and complex datapaths in chip design today.
MIT OCW offers free, open access to educational materials from
1259 MIT courses for educators, self-learners, and students around the
world for self-study or supplementary use. "Course 6.884 -- Complex
Digital Systems," was developed by MIT's Professor Arvind and MIT
Associate Professor Krste Asanovic.
"It's time to set a new bar in what we can expect students to have
designed while in college," says Shiv Tasker, chief executive officer
at Bluespec. "The days of designing a filter as your master's thesis
are long gone. We should expect students to implement a million gate
design in a semester."
Bluespec's EDA software toolset incorporates Term Rewriting
Systems (TRS)-based synthesis, a groundbreaking technology developed
by Professor Arvind and his students, to enable HW designers to
generate control logic on a correct-by-compiler construction basis.
Hardware designers can raise the level of abstraction of application
specific IC (ASIC) and field programmable gate array (FPGA) designs
while retaining the ability to automatically synthesize register
transfer level (RTL) code, without compromising speed, power or area.
This methodology reduces development costs for complex, customizable
designs, allowing semiconductor manufacturers to support smaller
markets with more targeted solutions.
Materials posted online related to Bluespec are course lecture
notes and lab materials that include descriptions and information on
technology and scaling; area, delay, and power dissipation of gates
and interconnect; VLSI implementation styles emphasizing cell-based
ICs and FPGAs; hardware description languages (HDLs) including Verilog
and Bluespec; clocking, power distribution, packaging, I/O, and
fabrication testing.
The course is available online at:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/
6-884Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm. (Due to its length, this URL
may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address
field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
"Anytime we can publish cutting-edge course material with strong
real-world application such as the course based on Bluespec's
methodology, we advance MIT's goal of openly sharing useful
information on a global scale," remarks Anne Margulies, executive
director of MIT OpenCourseWare. "We are pleased to add this course to
our publication, and look forward to the advanced learning that it
will provide to the greater education community."
The MIT OCW project launched in September 2002 with joint funding
from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, and MIT. It is an internationally recognized educational
resource where content can be used, copied, distributed, translated,
and modified by anyone, anywhere in the world. It is required that the
material use be non-commercial, that the original MIT faculty authors
receive attribution if the materials are republished or reposted
online, and that adapters openly share materials in the same manner as
MIT OCW.
About MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW), available at http://ocw.mit.edu,
makes course materials used in the teaching of all MIT undergraduate
and graduate subjects available on the web, free of charge, to any
user in the world. Educators use the materials for curriculum
development, while students and self-learners around the globe utilize
them for self-study or supplementary learning. MIT OCW is not a
degree-granting or credit-bearing initiative, it is an open web-based
publication of the MIT faculty's educational materials. With 1,250
courses now available, MIT OCW is delivering on the promise of open
sharing of knowledge.
About Bluespec
Bluespec Inc. manufactures an industry standards-based Electronic
Design Automation (EDA) toolset that significantly raises the level of
abstraction for hardware design while retaining the ability to
automatically synthesize high-quality RTL, without compromising speed,
power or area. The toolset, the only one focused on control and
complex datapaths, allows ASIC and FPGA designers to reduce design
time, bugs and re-spins that contribute to product delays and
escalating costs. More information can be found on www.bluespec.com or
by calling (781) 250-2200.
Copyright 2006 Bluespec, Inc. Bluespec is a trademark of Bluespec,
Inc. All other brands, products, or service names may be trademarks or
service marks of the companies with which they are associated.
Contact:
MIT OCW
Jon Paul Potts, 617-452-3621
Email Contact
or
Bluespec Inc.
George Harper, 781-250-2200
Email Contact
or
Public Relations for Bluespec
Nanette Collins, 617-437-1822
Email Contact
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