Cadence, CoWare Ally To Drive ESL Design

Oct. 13, 2003

With the lofty goal of creating a new level of design abstraction, Cadence Design Systems and CoWare will jointly pursue an electronic-system-level (ESL) design methodology. The vendors' strategic alliance is intended to mend the methodology rift between the transaction level represented by SystemC and the implementation level (RTL) by sharing verification, models, and standards. The glue between the two worlds, as the pair sees it, is the transaction level of abstraction that SystemC brings.

The alliance spans a joint licensing and cross-development agreement as well as coordinated marketing and standards strategies. As part of the alliance, Cadence will license and transfer its Signal Processing Worksystem (SPW) group to CoWare. That aspect of the agreement adds algorithm design to CoWare's processor, bus, system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture, and hardware/software co-design tools. In addition, Cadence is making an equity investment in CoWare.

The two vendors have pledged a joint commitment to the SystemC standard, planning to unify emerging technologies by sharing technology and models. The first step in forging a new methodology is creating a system-to-silicon design flow. The flow would be based on CoWare's ConvergenSC and LISATek system-level design suites and the Cadence Incisive functional verification platform. Cadence and CoWare will work with vendors such as ARM to ensure that the unified ESL flow is supported by interoperable IP.

For details, go to www.cadence.com or www.coware.com.

About the Author

David Maliniak | MWRF Executive Editor

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.