VSIA eyes verification reuse

VSIA eyes verification reuse; Altera buys Northwest Logic
By Michael Santarini, EE Times
October 2, 2000 (3:59 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20001002S0021

The Virtual Socket Interface Alliance's Verification Development Working Group has elected Thomas Anderson co-chairman. Anderson is vice president of applications engineering at 0-In Design Automation Inc.

VSIA also announced the lineup for its meeting later this month in Santa Clara, Calif.

Anderson will split the chairman's duties with Verification DWG founder Robin Bhagat, vice president for SoC software at Palmchip Corp. Verification reuse is becoming a key issue, Anderson said, and VSIA is redoubling efforts in verification-related specifications to establish best practices for both core providers and core integrators.

Bhagat started the Verification DWG in 1999 to define a set of verification deliverables. That charter includes verification of the standalone cores, of the interface between the core and the rest of the SoC, and of the SoC itself.

The working group draws its membership from core providers, core integ rators and EDA vendors. Companies represented include Bops Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Palmchip Corp. and 0-In Design Automation.

VSIA also announced that more than 100 SoC professionals attended its meeting at St. John's College (Cambridge, England) in August. The event featured a keynote address and spec adoption presentations by ARM Ltd., Infineon Technologies AG, Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector, STMicroelectronics and the Virtual Component Exchange.

VSIA's next meeting, also open to nonmembers, will take place Oct. 25 in Santa Clara, Calif., at the Marriott Hotel. Highlights will include an orientation program; a keynote by Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor Graphics; and updates from Technical Committee chairman Larry Rosenberg and VSIA president Timothy O'Donnell. More information is available at www.vsia.org.

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Altera Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) has acquired privately held Northwest Logic Inc. (Hillsboro, Ore.), a provider of syst em design services and intellectual property (IP) specializing in telecommunications, data communications and embedded processor systems design. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

By purchasing Northwest Logic, which had been an Altera Megafunctions Partners Program (AMPP) partner, Altera gains design services, development software and IP cores for system-on-programmable-chip design.

Northwest Logic earlier developed an SDRAM controller core for Altera that offered greater than 100-MHz performance in Altera's Flex 10KE family of PLDs, suiting the core for embedded PCI and PowerPC implementations.

The companies said that in addition to the SDRAM core, Altera picks up Northwest Logic's double-data-rate DRAM and zero-burst-transfer SRAM. Those products will become part of Altera's MegaCore product line.

Northwest Logic will operate as wholly owned subsidiary and will provide system architecture development, embedded system design and embedded software development, as well as programmable logic and ASIC design.

Existing customers of Northwest Logic's IP cores and design services will be serviced by Northwest Logic.