Aptix Corporation Announces Software Integration Station; New Product Enables Software Developers to Accelerate Code Development and Improve Time-to-market for Embedded SoC Designs.

Business/Hi-Tech Editors

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 2000

Aptix Corporation today announced the availability of its new Software Integration Station(TM), a highly versatile, reusable, reprogrammable and affordable solution that allows embedded software developers to use the benefits of emulation and rapid prototyping to deliver their code months earlier.

Software Integration Station enables embedded software developers to start code development and integration as soon as the hardware engineers have a "simulateable" version of their design ready. Embedded software components such as boot code, drivers, diagnostics, and test programs can be completely developed and debugged long before first silicon is available. It also enables developers to execute application code at multi-megahertz speeds on hardware prototypes in time to find and correct hardware problems before committing to silicon.

"Embedded software validation is one of the biggest challenges that system-on-chip (SoC) designers face in improving time-to-market," said Charles Miller, Aptix's senior vice president of worldwide sales. "Software Integration Station provides designers with an inexpensive solution to help designers test, diagnose, and debug their hardware prior to first silicon."

Software developers using Software Integration Station can use the same compilers, debuggers ICE unit, and operating environment that would be used working on a prototype board.

Software Integration Station is based on the technology found in Aptix's award-winning System Explorer(TM) reconfigurable system prototyping products. However, since Software Integration Station does not include the hardware development and debug capabilities of System Explorer, it can be made available at a significantly reduced cost.

Software Integration Station is designed to serve three markets. First, it will allow companies using System Explorer in their hardware design flows to leverage their investments by making their software developers more productive. Second, companies that use expensive mainframe hardware emulation products can now afford to move beyond hardware verification into software validation. Finally, companies that do not use emulation in their hardware flows can use the experts available through Aptix's eSoCverify.com to create emulation solutions that can be used by their software developers.

Register transfer level (RTL) designers can have their hardware prototypes developed on System Explorer systems by a team of Aptix experts. Through eSoCverify.com, Aptix's secure, Web-based SoC verification system, Aptix enables a hardware design team to upload its RTL designs to Aptix via a secure virtual private network. Aptix's emulation engineers can configure a design on System Explorer, the configuration for which is captured as a bitstream and downloaded to Software Integration Stations over the network, enabling software developers to use the latest version of a design. Bringing software developers into the early stages of the design process ensures that problems can be solved early and before expensive production commitments are made.

"At Legerity, we've used Aptix products extensively on our ADSL project to provide a platform for developing embedded DSP software, performing real-time system analysis and preparing ourselves for Silicon validation, long before the silicon is actually built," said Rajesh Mellacheruvu, senior product development engineer at Legerity. "It gives us a headstart on studying hardware-software trade-offs, understanding our system performance very early in the game and helps in avoiding costly silicon re-spins. By providing a low-cost, high-performance package, Aptix is enabling us to put these tools in the hands of more engineers."

Pacific ASIC Systems utilizes Software Integration Station in the development of its ASIC technology solutions for satellite and wireless communication systems, digital signal processing, and storage technologies. "We have significantly reduced our time-to-market and our overall costs in enabling our software engineers to get an early start on the development of code," said Matt Thompson, consulting engineer.

Pricing and Availability

Pricing for Software Integration Station varies based on capacity required by design companies. Units are available starting at $50,000. For more information, contact an Aptix sales representative at 888/TO-APTIX (888/862-7249) or by e-mail at [e-mail].

About Aptix Corporation

Aptix Corporation's products are used to verify system and system-on-chip (SoC) designs prior to integrated circuit (IC) and board tape-out and fabrication. Aptix's products utilize the block-based verification methodology, which provides a mechanism to map and verify individual design blocks incrementally and in parallel with the design creation process. This methodology shortens the net prototype creation time of achieving real-world operation of the prototype to the few days required to map and verify the last RTL block designed. Debugging designs becomes simple because the mapping process is both under the user's interactive control and follows the natural hierarchy of the design. This also makes tracing design problems back to the source net list an intuitive process.

The company is privately held and is headquartered at 2880 North First Street, San Jose, California 95134. Telephone [phone], Fax [phone]. Visit Aptix on the Web at http://www.aptix.com.

Aptix is a registered trademark of Aptix Corporation. System Explorer and Software Integration Station are trademarks of Aptix Corporation.