ESL Tools Analyze, Optimize CPU-Based Designs

Sept. 20, 2004
Automating the process of optimizing and accelerating processor-based designs, the Triton tool suite from Poseidon Design Systems is based on a SystemC software and hardware co-simulation environment. Furthermore, the suite employs transaction-level...

Automating the process of optimizing and accelerating processor-based designs, the Triton tool suite from Poseidon Design Systems is based on a SystemC software and hardware co-simulation environment. Furthermore, the suite employs transaction-level modeling (TLM) and Poseidon's hardware/software partitioning technology to co-simulate hardware and software at the architectural level. After that, it tunes the embedded system for optimal performance, power, and cost.

Triton Tuner is a simulation and analysis environment based on SystemC. It analyzes embedded-system performance, including software (using performance counters, code profiling, and bottleneck analysis) and hardware (checking memory bandwidth, pipeline stalls, and cache misses). It helps designers fine-tune their system architecture by determining the optimal hardware/software partition for a given application and by generating more efficient code based on the new partition.

Triton Builder is a synthesis tool that automatically generates algorithm-specific hardware acceleration blocks in RTL. These blocks offload the math-intensive algorithms from the host processor as determined by Tuner's partitioning results.

In a benchmarking effort, Poseidon has implemented a wavelet encoder for a JPEG 2000 application. This yielded a 23× reduction in execution cycles from 81.13 million cycles to 3.54 million cycles.

Triton Tuner and Builder are available now, both separately and as a suite. Triton Tuner ranges from $30,000 to $50,000 for a one-year, time-based individual license. Triton Builder ranges from $70,000 to $95,000. The suite ranges from $95,000 to $140,000.

Poseidon Design Systemswww.poseidon-systems.com See associated figure
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.

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