Common Emulation Interface Announced; Common Interface A Major Breakthrough For The Benefit Of Users.

Busines Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2001

Today the SCE-API consortium, formed at DAC 2000, which comprises Aptix Corporation, CoWare, IKOS Systems, Mentor Graphics, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, and TransEDA announced the completion of phase one of the specification for a "common emulation application interface."

The groundbreaking interface allows third parties and competing emulation vendors to use a common interface for connecting third party software tools and user software models to all emulators and simulators that support the solution.

"The consortium is a major breakthrough for the benefit of users. The API will allow users of emulation to more easily interface software models & tools from organizations that supply technologies such as intelligent test benches and C and C-like modeling environments. Both emulation and the common API technology are fundamental to ST Microelectronics' system design strategy," said Gerard Mas, functional verification center of competence manager for the CMG division of STMicroelectronics.

The Common API phase one foundation technology was donated to the consortium by IKOS Systems, one of the founding members. The result is a standard transaction-oriented modeling interface for emulators which provides multiple message-passing channels between software models running on a host workstation and RTL models running in an emulator.

"Now that emulation has become widely accepted as the best option for full chip and system verification of large SoC designs, EDA companies must join forces and collaborate to more easily integrate leading edge tools with the unsurpassed combination of speed, capacity, and debug capabilities of emulation," said Ramon Nunez, President and CEO of IKOS Systems. Nunez continued, "The efficient integration of these capabilities in the user's design flow will result in a major leap forward in dealing with the design verification challenge our customers face. I am pleased to have IKOS contribute this foundational technology and implementation example to the consortium and I am very excited about the new levels of productivity this initiative will bring to the user."

Amr Mohsen, Chairman, President and CEO of Aptix Corporation noted, "Our customers are looking for high performance emulation to integrate more complex hardware and software IPs for larger SoC designs, and validate new products in real-world environment. Our customers need the same high-performance for transaction level inter-operabilities. Aptix is pleased to be a founding member of the SCE-API consortium, and we are committed to help lead the group to new standards of high performance and flexibility."

Brian Bailey, Chief Technologist for verification solutions within Mentor Graphics commented, "As a founding member of the Consortium, Mentor is pleased to work with the other members to provide all of our customers and third party partners with a productivity solution which interfaces at the system transaction level to our verification tools."

"Synopsys is excited to be a founding member working with the SCE-API Consortium to define a platform for interfacing to our strong verification tools: VCS, Scirocco, and VERA," said Farhad Hayat, Vice President of Marketing for Verification Products at Synopsys. "We believe this will enable our verification customers to achieve higher levels of productivity to meet their SoC verification requirements."

The consortium is currently in discussion with two existing standards organizations, the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) and Accellera, both of whom have expressed interest in making the common emulation API technology available to the public through their organizations.

"The consortium is working closely with both Acellera and Open SystemC to make this technology widely available early this Spring," commented, Linda Prowse Fosler, VP of Marketing for IKOS Systems.

Standard Co-Emulation API (SCE-API) Consortium Member Contacts:

Aptix Corp. Miguel Koch [e-mail] +49.89.45.10.48.11

CoWare Inc. Ed Begun [e-mail] 408/845-7647

IKOS Systems, Inc. Andrew Etherington [e-mail] 408/284-8533

Mentor Graphics Corp. Brian Bailey [e-mail] 503/685-1371

Synopsys, Inc. Kevin Kranen [e-mail] 650/584-4228

STMicroelectronics Gerard Mas [e-mail] 408/391-8379

TransEDA, Inc. Tom Borgstrom [e-mail] 408/335-1303