The SPIRIT Consortium Sends IP-XACT Specification to IEEE.SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif. -- The SPIRIT Consortium, a global organization focused on establishing multi-faceted IP/tool integration standards that drive sustainable growth in electronic design, today announced that it is to contribute the current version of its system-on-chip meta-data specification, v1.2, to the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, www.ieee.org) A membership organization that includes engineers, scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. for consideration as an industry standard. This technical specification, to be known as the IP-XACT design-exchange format, comprehensively addresses support for the integrated multi-vendor RTL (Register Transfer Level) A high-level hardware description language (HDL) for defining digital circuits. The circuits are described as a collection of registers, Boolean equations, control logic such as "if-then-else" statements as well as complex event sequences; design and verification flow. The nomenclatured P1685 IEEE-SA IEEE-SA Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers-Standard Association working group is focused on building industry adoption and ratifying an open industry meta-data standard for IP providers, EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. vendors, and independent design manufacturers to help build real marketplace benefit for efficient design tool and IP integration. The IP-XACT specification describes a meta-data schema for the description of intellectual property (IP) and an application programming interface (API (Application Programming Interface) A language and message format used by an application program to communicate with the operating system or some other control program such as a database management system (DBMS) or communications protocol. ) to provide tool access to this schema. This schema provides a standard method to describe IP to make it compatible with automated integration techniques. Tools that implement this standard will be able to automatically interpret, configure, integrate, and manipulate IP blocks delivered with meta-data that conforms to the proposed IP meta-data description, and the IP-XACT APIs will provide a standard method for linking multiple tools together through a single exchange meta-data format. This automatic integration of tools and IP from multiple vendors creates an IP-XACT Enabled environment. The proposed IEEE standards process will commence work on the current IP-XACT deliverables from The SPIRIT Consortium and will complete following a further technology contribution from The Consortium covering transaction-level modeling Transaction-level modeling (TLM) is a high-level approach to modeling digital systems where details of communication among modules are separated from the details of the implementation of functional units or of the communication architecture. extensions. "The SPIRIT Consortium provides multi-vendor design-flow integration requirements that help ensure efficiency and rapid adoption of standard specifications," said Gary Delp, technical director of The SPIRIT Consortium. "As The SPIRIT Consortium specifications are adopted, integrated device manufacturers See IDM. will benefit from faster time-to-market and IP integration by making their design-flows IP-XACT enabled." The SPIRIT Consortium specifications document hardware and software views of a design. They document the interface on an IP, including identification of ad-hoc connections, interfaces to standard buses, and custom buses. This allows system design and verification tools processing the IP to automatically recognize the integration requirements. They also document the views of the design, as well as register and memory-map information. About IP-XACT IP-XACT provides support of verification IP and interfaces (e.g., monitors), configurability data exchange, explicit hierarchy support, and APIs for exchange of design meta-data. Specifically, the IP-XACT proposed standard today is comprised of the following characteristics: --full support of RTL design, including any component type, hardware description language (language) Hardware Description Language - (HDL) A kind of language used for the conceptual design of integrated circuits. Examples are VHDL and Verilog. (HDL (Hardware Description Language) A language used to describe the functions of an electronic circuit for documentation, simulation or logic synthesis (or all three). Although many proprietary HDLs have been developed, Verilog and VHDL are the major standards. ), configuration or connection-type at this level of abstraction The level of complexity by which a system is viewed. The higher the level, the less detail. The lower the level, the more detail. The highest level of abstraction is the single system itself. --a set of architectural rules that define constraints and guide the connectivity and usage of each IP in a given platform --a set of bus definitions that describe the meaningful signal names of each bus type so that it can be connected to compatible IP --a mechanism to define any bus structure in terms of signal names that can be used for hooking up other IP --a structure for describing the instantiation (programming) instantiation - Producing a more defined version of some object by replacing variables with values (or other variables). 1. In object-oriented programming, producing a particular object from its class template. and connectivity of components or component models within a design --methods for defining register information, memory maps and address spaces --a way of separating platform-specific meta-data required for a piece of IP that may not be part of the generic IP definition --a way of specifying configuration options for a piece of IP and enabling the selection of these options --provides a mechanism to enable associations between configurable elements of a design to be specified and handled --a way of storing persistent data Data that exists from session to session. Persistent data are stored in a database on disk or tape. Contrast with transient data. See persistent name. that supports the iterative it·er·a·tive adj. 1. Characterized by or involving repetition, recurrence, reiteration, or repetitiousness. 2. Grammar Frequentative. Noun 1. process of user configurations and the options used to derive them --a basic interface to enable configuration and generation scripts --a mechanism for adding implementation constraints to descriptions of IP to aid in the flow to synthesis Extensions to the base of IP-XACT are being developed in The SPIRIT Consortium today to address system-level design and transactional verification. These extensions will be included in the IP-XACT v1.4 specification to be delivered into the P1685 IEEE standards process towards the end of 2006. About the Consortium The SPIRIT Consortium is a global organization focused on establishing multi-faceted IP/tool integration standards that drive sustainable growth in electronic design. It is comprised of companies dedicated to the adoption of a unified set of specifications for configuring, integrating, and verifying IP in advanced SoC design tool sets. The Consortium is comprised of leading EDA, IP, system integration, and semiconductor companies. For more information on The SPIRIT Consortium and its goals, please visit www.spiritconsortium.org. For more information about The SPIRIT Consortium, please contact Jayne Scheckla at 503-685-4833 or jayne_scheckla@mentor.com. All brands or product names are the property of their respective holders, and all other trademarks implied or not implied are rightfully owned by the companies as registered in their country of origin. |
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