Cadence VCC 2.0 Delivers New Modeling Capabilities for Platform-based Design, Optimizing Time-to-market and SoC Design Chain Interaction

SAN JOSE, Calif.----Sept. 25, 2000-- Cadence Design Systems, the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, today announced a variety of new capabilities for system-level designers with the latest release of its market-leading Virtual Component Co-Design (VCC) environment for platform-based design.

VCC 2.0 delivers new modeling features especially geared for performing rapid evaluations of implementation alternatives for new and derivative products early in the design cycle, thus enabling better and more efficient coordination between SoC providers and system integrators. In addition, the VCC environment has also been more tightly integrated with co-verification and implementation flows.

VCC 2.0 introduces a new level of interaction into the relationship between SoC providers and system integrators by elevating the decision-making about functional and architectural alternatives to the system level. For SoC developers, VCC 2.0 provides an open modeling infrastructure to model specific highlights of their virtual components (IP) through a set of ``architecture services''. It provides a comprehensive library of more than 40 such services from asynchronous delays to time-sliced buses and also allows the modeling of custom architectural services. System integrators use the VCC environment to more efficiently articulate their product needs and to assess the integration aspects of components at the system level at the earliest point in the design cycle.

``The promise of true SoC design is dependent on the ability to quickly and efficiently integrate multiple IP blocks as a complete system,'' Frank Schirrmeister, director of product management for co-design technology at Cadence®. ``The earlier and the more accurately system architects can evaluate their alternatives, the better chance of a working system design being completed faster. With this release of our pioneering system design tool we are addressing these critical up-front evaluation issues, as well as the often forgotten about, yet as critical, challenges of linking the system design to actual implementation.''

The open VCC 2.0 architectural modeling infrastructure -- providing the industry's most robust platform for IP specification, evaluation, selection and, integration -- improves the accuracy of evaluating the impact of communication between functions and their performance. Specifically, the performance impact of memories and their hierarchy, caches, queues, timers, direct memory accesses (DMA), memory management units (MMU), real-time operating systems (RTOS), and bus-protocols can be explored very early in the design cycle prior to committing to the implementation of a new or derivative designs.

``As an original development partner during the development of VCC, our focus has been the modeling of the IP in our SoC platforms,'' said Jean-Marc Chateau, director of design, consumer and micro groups, ST Microelectronics. ``The memory and cache modeling features in VCC 2.0 will allow us and our customers to explore the impact of different memory hierarchies on overall system performance before we commit to implementation of our SoC platforms. VCC 2.0 will significantly optimize the interaction with our SoC customers to negotiate the system specification.''

``By using VCC's performance modeling techniques, we are creating libraries of reusable blocks that have known high-fidelity performance estimates,'' said Marinus van Lier, design technology group, Philips Semiconductors B.V. ``Armed with this advanced understanding of a blocks performance characteristics, our designers can assess partitioning decisions and make choices of IP far earlier in the design process than ever before at the system level. By modeling overall system performance, they can proceed with confidence that their decisions are positively affecting achievement of performance goals. Product developments will have fewer design iterations and products will reach the market faster than ever. Our first results are so encouraging that we are now deploying VCC methodology on one of our highest profile projects, the Nexperia Digital Video Platform, one of our Silicon System Platforms, whose system chips will power the next generation of digital convergence appliances for the home.''

Tight Links to Co-Verification and Complete Design Flow

Cadence is the first provider of a complete flow from system-level design through the validation of system architecture implementation, including interfaces between hardware and software components in the SoC integration. After design refinement the VCC environment assembles and generates C code for the software portion of the design and HDL for the hardware portion and then exports the data to the appropriate tools. The VCC environment also allows the design and its test-bench to be exported to a lower level of abstraction for co-verification of its hardware and software components.

In VCC 2.0, tighter links to industry-leading implementation tools have been added. Now, VCC 2.0 also creates the top-level shell of custom hardware blocks, which share several functions. Joined bus interfaces and communication between the blocks is automatically synthesized to speed up the design process from system level to implementation. This process identifies all blocks in a custom hardware communication to external modules and synthesizes the necessary buffer structures and bus interfaces accordingly.

``We have successfully modeled functions and components at the highest possible level of abstraction for automotive and wireless applications for Motorola micro-controllers,'' said Andreas Kanstein, senior CAD engineer Motorola SPS. ``The Cadence VCC environment's separation of function and architecture significantly speeds up the design process and helps to efficiently make design tradeoffs. Cadence VCC, with its link to implementation, will further improve efficiency by simplifying the interface between the system designer and the semiconductor provider.''

Optimizing the SoC Design Chain Interaction

The VCC environment provides software and hardware virtual component vendors with a method for promoting and distributing critical information to ensure successful design and integration of IP blocks for platform-based designs. It also allows system companies and silicon vendors to efficiently interact using system-level virtual prototypes, optimize product specifications, shorten development cycles, and capitalize on the increased capabilities offered by multi-million gate integrated circuits.

``A true co-design environment must support essential architectural elements such as the central processing unit, real-time operating system, buses, memory and dedicated hardware and software,'' said Dr. Maximilian Fuchs, manager of the software development process, BMW AG. ``To improve time-to-market, each component must be modeled at a higher level of abstraction earlier in the design process.'' As one of the participants in the Felix initiative, we have been able use the Cadence VCC environment to do virtual system integration of our designs by proving functionality of various system configurations before implementation. The Cadence VCC environment will become an instrumental part in our system design process and will play the role of the virtual integration platform.``

Cadence Augments Services for Co-Development

Cadence offers customers a comprehensive range of services that can help accelerate adoption of a HW/SW co-development methodology and integration of the VCC product into their existing development environments. The VCC services package includes tool efficiency training, Quickstart programs, and methodology consulting to recommend a design process that best leverages the VCC environment.

Pricing and Availability

After an extensive beta testing period, VCC 2.0 is available today on Unix-based workstations from Sun Microsystems and Windows NT operating platforms. Special packages for system integrators (VCC Evaluator) and SoC providers (VCC Architect) are available. Pricing starts at $52,800 for a one-year license. For information regarding international pricing, please contact the local or regional Cadence sales office.

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With approximately 5,100 employees and 1999 annual revenue of $1.1 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities located around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. For more information, visit http://www.cadence.com.

Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks. All other trademarks are the properties of their owners.

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     Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
     Valerie J. Smith, 408/428-5795
     vsmith@cadence.com
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     Mike Sottak for Cadence, 649/941-4218
     mike@wiredisland.tc