VLSI Velocity and Wind River Systems Software Tools Connect for Embedded Hardware/Software Co-Design
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 2, 1998--
Complete Solution for Embedded Systems-on-a-Chip
Development Cuts Design Cycle Time; ASIC Design and Software Development in Parallel
VLSI Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:VLSI) has strengthened the Velocity(TM) Rapid Silicon Prototyping initiative's credentials as an innovative solution for embedded hardware/software co-design by establishing a technical linkage with Wind River Systems' Tornado(TM) development environment and VxWorks(R) embedded operating system.
Hardware/software co-design makes big contributions to Rapid Silicon Prototyping's ability to cut embedded system-on-a-chip design cycles by 50 percent or more. Support for industry-leading software from Wind River Systems marks an important milestone in the emergence of the Velocity initiative as an industrial-strength alternative for time-to-market-critical embedded product design and development programs.
Jim Jacot, VLSI Velocity product marketing manager commented: "The Wind River operating system and tools compatibility gives the Velocity RSP7 platform instant street credibility as a real-world hardware/software co-development solution. Here, a leading embedded systems software environment meets the world's most innovative system-on-a-chip design methodology. Together, VLSI and Wind River products boost the ability of application developers to bring new generations of embedded systems products to market faster and with less development cycle risk than ever before."
Dave Sheaffer, director of market development at Wind River Systems said: "Embedded systems-on-a-chip are the next frontier for our industry segment. Embedded computing began as board-based 'VME-style' systems, spread out to encompass microprocessor-based custom hardware and is now ready to move to single-chip architectures integrating microprocessor cores, DSPs, peripherals, memory, and function-specific circuit blocks. The Tornado-Velocity relationship reengineers the development cycle to run hardware and software design in parallel, simultaneously increasing the productivity of product development teams."
Rapid Silicon Prototyping Hardware/Software Co-Design
The VLSI Velocity RSP7 prototyping system ships with a VxWorks Board Support Package (BSP) and micro driver source code for IP blocks in the RSP7 deconfigurable ASIC. This enables developers to run applications written for the VxWorks operating system on the RSP7 board. Furthermore, the extensive connectivity options offered by the RSP7 -- including serial communications, JTAG debugging ports and Ethernet via PCIbus -- establish a robust connection between RSP7 boards and development-host computers running compilers, debuggers and other tools.
Hardware/software co-development, the ability to perform IC and software design simultaneously, has become one of the hottest topics of discussion in the embedded computing world. By designing hardware and writing software at the same time, engineering teams can slash product development times, improve the quality of end products and include more customer-winning features and differentiation.
Velocity Rapid Silicon Prototyping
Introduced in September 1998, VLSI's Velocity Rapid Silicon Prototyping design methodology charts an innovative course for the future of multimillion-transistor system-on-a-chip design techniques. Using Rapid Silicon Prototyping, engineers derive new custom ICs from real-world prototype ICs built up from reusable on-chip intellectual property. The reusable building block structure of the silicon prototype enables engineers to integrate additional IP into a final design or to "edit out" unneeded circuit features. Rapid Silicon Prototyping development systems integrate prototype ICs with board-level facilities for memory, debugging, communications, databus extensions and field programmable gate arrays.
Engineering teams can then debug, test and verify a system-on-a-chip design, observing its behavior running actual software at real-time execution speeds. This significantly shortens development cycles and increases the probability that the resulting custom IC design will perform as specified when first samples come back from the fab. The VLSI Velocity initiative has received overwhelmingly favorable comment from IC industry observers as a significant breakthrough in narrowing the "design productivity gap" that holds IC designers back from taking full advantage of the benefits offered by today's deep-submicron chip manufacturing technologies.
Tornado Development Environment
Available for UNIX, Windows 95, and Windows NT host platforms and more than twenty target processor families, Tornado is a complete software cross-development environment for embedded systems. Tornado is seamlessly integrated and includes the industry's most powerful development tools and VxWorks, a feature-rich, high performance and scalable real-time operating system. Completely open and customizable, Tornado facilitates the use of third-party and customer-developed tools to enhance its capabilities and meet unique customer requirements. Tornado has more than 170 software and hardware partners and is used by thousands of developers worldwide.
Embedded Systems Conference Demonstration
VLSI will publicly demonstrate the Velocity RSP7 system running the VxWorks OS connected to a Tornado-empowered development host computer at this week's Embedded Systems Conference held here. For more information on VLSI's Velocity Rapid Silicon Prototyping design methodology, readers should contact velocity@vlsi.com or access the Velocity home page, www.vlsi.com/velocity.
About VLSI Technology, Inc.
VLSI Technology, Inc. designs and manufactures custom and semicustom integrated circuits for leading firms in the wireless communications, networking, consumer digital entertainment and computing markets. VLSI's value proposition is based on full-service customer support, deep libraries of vertical market-focused IC intellectual property, unparalleled custom circuit design expertise enabled through the Velocity Rapid Silicon Prototyping design style, and one of the world's most flexible and efficient custom circuit manufacturing facilities. The company is based in San Jose, California, with 1997 revenues from continuing operations of $712.7 million, and approximately 2,200 employees worldwide. Visit VLSI's homepage at vlsi.com.
Velocity is a trademark of VLSI Technology, Inc. Tornado is a trademark and VxWorks is a registered trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc. Other trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.
CONTACT:
VLSI Technology Inc.
Martin Chorich, 408/922-5155
martin.chorich@sanjose.vlsi.com |
