Aisys morphs into an embedded design tool supplier

Aisys morphs into an embedded design tool supplier
By Tets Maniwa, EEdesign
October 5, 2000 (12:33 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20001005S0018

The software-driver supplier Aisys has become a provider of embedded system development tools. In announcing the change in strategies at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, Calif., Aisys declared that it is now supplying device-driver automation tools to generate drivers, initialization code and glue software utilities for processors and peripherals.

The underlying trends of greater integration and increasing numbers of peripherals increases the difficulties of hardware-software integration. The company is applying its technology to increase the level of automation in the integration of hardware and software. Initially, Aisys created software drivers for smaller function blocks and peripherals, with its Driveway technology doing the job from the extraction of operations in the HDL descriptions. But as the function blocks continue to increase in size, the embedded functionality also increases, so now Aisys' tools address the integration of t he hardware and software at the system block level.

The latest offerings automatically generate the board support packages—device drivers, initialization code and documentation—to reduce the integration time and effort. In addition, test and debug are enhanced through the generation of test board support packages that include test setups and documented histories of code options. As a part of its new products, Aisys now offers support for vendor-specific cores including processors and other major peripherals in addition to the current Motorola peripherals. One new vendor supported by Aisys is Texas Instruments and its TMS470 products as well as TI's MIPS architecture. The Driveway tool for the TMS470 is available now at $9,500.

In addition to the TI MIPs products, Aisys has joined the MIPS alliance program. The agreement calls for Aisys to provide the Driveway device driver design environment to support the MIPS32 immediately, with a migration path to the MIPS64 architecture. Aisys also will offer consulting services to all MIPS licensees and customers.