Major Industry Players Collaborate On Open C++ Modeling Platform To Solve Key System-On-A-Chip Problems.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--

SystemC to Enable Fully Interoperable System-Level IP Exchange and

Co-Design

Leading EDA, IP, semiconductor, systems and embedded software companies announced today the "Open SystemC(TM) Initiative" and immediate availability of a modeling platform for free Web download. Achieving a breakthrough in industry cooperation, SystemC is the first result of the initiative, which enables, promotes and accelerates system-level intellectual property (IP) model exchange and co-design using a common C++ modeling platform. Through an Open Community Licensing model, designers can create, validate and share models with other companies using SystemC and a standard ANSI C++ compiler. In addition, electronic design automation (EDA) vendors have complete access to the SystemC modeling platform required to build interoperable tools. There are no licensing fees associated with the use of SystemC, and any company is free to join and participate.

Backed by a growing community of well over 45 charter member companies, the Open SystemC Initiative includes representation from the systems, semiconductor, IP, embedded software and EDA industries. The steering group includes ARM, CoWare, Inc., Cygnus Solutions, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Infineon, Lucent Technologies, Sony Corporation STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS) and Texas Instruments. The goal of the Open Community Licensing model is to provide a foundation to build a market upon, and the role of the steering group is to provide an environment of structured innovation ensuring that interoperability is retained for the benefit of all.

Additional endorsements are available in the Open SystemC Initiative quote sheet and listed charter members include the following companies: Actel, Alcatel, Altera Corporation, American Applied Research, Aptix, Arcadia Design Systems, ARC Cores, Aristo Technology, ARM, Billions of Operations Per Second, CAE Plus, Chameleon Systems, Inc., Co-Design Automation, Inc., CoWare, Inc., CSELT, Cygnus Solutions, Denali, Ericsson, Frequency Technology, Inc., Frontier Design, Fujitsu, Genedax, Inc., IKOS Systems, I-Logix, Inc., Infineon, Integrated Silicon Systems, Ltd., Intellectual Property, Inc., Internet CAD, LogicVision, Lucent Technologies, Magma Design Automation, MIPS Technologies, Inc., Monterey Design Systems, Motorola, Inc., Seva Technologies, Sican Microelectronics Corp., Simulation Magic, Snaketech, Sony Corporation, Stellar Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics, Summit Design, Sun Microsystems, SynapticCAD, Synchronicity, Synopsys, Inc., Tensilica, Inc., Texas Instruments, TransModeling, Inc., Ultima, Verplex Systems, Viewlogic Systems, Inc., Xilinx.

Huge new design challenges for system-on-a-chip (SoC) are the result of decreasing time-to-market coupled with rapidly increasing gate counts and embedded software representing 50-90 percent of the functionality. Because C and C++ are the dominant languages used by chip architects and software engineers today, initiative members believe that a C-based approach to hardware modeling is necessary. The preferred approach is to define a modeling platform using C++ class libraries and a simulation kernel, which provides greater interoperability, portability and readability. To date there has been no commonly accepted C++ style available in the industry, forcing companies to maintain multiple C++ models in order to exchange and reuse system-level models.

"Designing complex IP, such as ARM(R) processors, into today's leading-edge SoCs demands both fast and accurate models for application software development and hardware verification," said Tudor Brown, CTO at ARM. "Without a common dialect for these models, ARM must support multiple models for different C-based environments. SystemC is a significant initiative toward developing standards for system-level IP models."

"SoC demands complete validation of the system concept, and C++ offers the best simulation performance for system-level modeling of software and hardware at multiple abstraction levels," said Dr. Franz Neppl, senior vice president of corporate development at Infineon Technologies AGs. "The OpenSystemC Initiative is a breakthrough in cooperation for the EDA industry and delivers the interoperability we need."

Developed to address the hardware/software co-design reality of SoC, SystemC is the result of technical collaboration between Synopsys, CoWare and Frontier Design. Both Synopsys and CoWare had been developing similar C-based modeling solutions, adopted and used by industry leaders, over recent years. With the encouragement of those leaders, the similarity of these solutions was leveraged in an active collaborative effort that has now resulted in the Open SystemC Initiative. Frontier Design and Synopsys collaborated on the fixed-point data types necessary for applications in digital communications, digital audio and digital video. Additionally, the pioneering research in C-based design at IMEC, MIT, Stanford and UCIrvine is the foundation of SystemC.

"As a pioneer in co-design, CoWare is delighted to be a founding member of the Open SystemC Initiative in order to help secure the widespread adoption of C-based design," said Guido Arnout, president and CEO at CoWare. "Everyone knows a design paradigm shift is approaching but many semiconductor and IP companies are hanging back until a common approach emerges for exchanging models. Now, with the development of a common platform, there are no barriers."

"We are bringing clarity to the chaos that prevails in the system-level design language world today and simultaneously opening up a whole new realm of opportunities," said Aart de Geus, chairman and CEO at Synopsys. "By championing interoperability at the beginning of this market, the Open SystemC initiative allows many companies to invest in an area that will be essential for future design. The fact that we have gathered together so many high-quality partners illustrates both the timeliness of meeting this need and the quality of SystemC as the right solution."

"We have been in the forefront of C-based hardware design for several years now," said Herman Beke, chairman and CEO at Frontier Design. "As a new EDA start-up and in the absence of interoperability between the many C-variants proposed by all EDA vendors, we consistently ran into customers' reluctance to fully exploit our advanced tools. We firmly believe that the Open SystemC initiative will create a low-risk environment for the design community, allowing everybody to expedite the move to a more productive next generation system level design methodology."

"Lucent has become the world's fastest-growing major semiconductor business by delivering system-on-a-chip solutions to the high-growth communications market," said Mark Pinto, chief technical officer and platform technology vice president at Lucent Technologies. "For growth of this segment to continue, we cannot allow design infrastructure issues to get in the way. We are happy to work with leaders in EDA, co-design, IP and semiconductors to drive the Open SystemC Initiative throughout the industry for everyone's benefit."

"We are experiencing significant advantages of C-based design on top of Verilog-based flow," said Tadahiko Nakamura, general manager of the SOC Technology department, Sony Corporation. "We strongly support the Open SystemC Initiative's efforts to drive a fully interoperable standard for C-based design."

"As software content continues to grow in embedded systems, interoperability of software development tools with EDA solutions becomes increasingly significant," said Alex Daly, president and CEO of Cygnus Solutions. "At Cygnus we are committed to delivering leading-edge software development tools and technologies to address this content creation challenge. We welcome our role in the Open SystemC Initiative to ensure that the needs of the embedded software developer are addressed and met."

"Complexity of telecommunication systems is steadily increasing and new products are introduced in an ever increasing pace," said Jan-Olof Kismalm, director, Microelectronics, Corporate Function Technology, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. "In the effort to keep product development times short in these complex systems we need to find new ways of describing complex functions and IP. We believe the Open SystemC Initiative is a good candidate to help us describe our systems in a more structured way allowing efficient co-design of hardware/software at an early stage in the design process which in return gives us shorter product development times."

"The lack of a widely adopted description language for system level IP and/or executable specifications is becoming a serious bottleneck in the system to silicon design flow for systems on a chip," said Mike Fazeli, World wide EDA manager, DSP Core Development/DSP/Wireless/BroadBand Access business units, Application Specific Products group, Texas Instruments. "The Open SystemC Initiative represents a giant step towards solving this bottleneck and establishing a community sponsored System Level Description Standard that is consistent and complementary with SLDL requirements and Rosetta efforts."

"The lack of a widely adopted C or C++ design style has become a serious bottleneck for the exchange of intellectual property and executable specifications at system-level," said Philippe Magarshack, Design Automation & Libraries program director at STMicroelectronics' Central R&D. "It also prevents the establishment of a best-in-class, mixed-vendor, system-to-silicon design methodology. We welcome the Open SystemC Initiative, which represents a giant step towards solving these issues."

"We continue to drive and support industry collaborations that will develop the system-on-a-chip market and are enthusiastic about the community-driven Open SystemC Initiative," said Kiminori Fujisaku, general manger WWSLT, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc.

SystemC is freely available through an Open Community Licensing program, taking the best of open source licensing and Sun Microsystems' Jini Community Source Licensing (SCSL). The commercial license will be offered at no cost. The steering group, along with other community members, will be responsible for enhancements and upgrades to the source code in the modeling platform as it moves forward.

"By adopting a business model for Open SystemC that is similar to Sun's Community Source Licensing, the founding members of the Open SystemC community have reinforced their commitment to solving SOC design challenges and championing the interoperability cause" said Bill Joy, chief scientist for Sun Microsystems. "The business model has been proven to combine the advantages of open source and proprietary licensing approaches."

Geoffrey Moore, chairman of The Chasm Group and author of 'Crossing The Chasm' said, "The nascent system level design tools market is deep in the chasm. Today, since there is no common modeling platform, the opportunity costs of system designers adopting any single tool offering is much too high, and the market cannot develop. By providing a common modeling platform, the Open System C Initiative is filling the critical link in the value chain for system level design."

About SystemC

The Open SystemC Initiative establishes an interoperable, open modeling platform to promote the growth of C-based design and enable exchange of system-level C++ models and co-design. The collaboration is the first of its kind in the EDA industry and promises to establish a de-facto modeling standard for the benefit of the entire electronics industry. There is broad and growing support for SystemC from leading companies in the semiconductor, systems, IP, EDA and embedded software industries. The charter companies, with Synopsys as the administrating organization through the TAP-in(TM) program, have established a Web site at www.systemc.org where users can download the SystemC modeling platform which includes the SystemC specification, source code and reference manual. An initial draft release of the SystemC modeling platform is available now for community download.

CoWare is a trademark of CoWare, Inc. Synopsys is a registered trademark, and TAP-in is a trademark of Synopsys Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.