Open Virtual Platform (OVP) Initiative for Multi-Core Software Development Celebrates Second Year Anniversary

OVP Movement Gaining Momentum with Widespread Industry Support: Over Two Thousand Users, Tens of Thousands of Downloads, Over 50 Processor Models, and Linux, Nucleus OS Support

OVP Quote Sheet for Second Anniversary Release (June 2010)

AutoESL, Atul Sharan, CEO

www.autoesl.com

"Virtual platforms are part of a successful system level design environment. Open Virtual Platforms enables our customers to easily and quickly verify their system level design prior to using our tools for implementation."

Cadence, Ran Avinun, Group Marketing Director, System Design and Verification

www.cadence.com

�The ease with which users can utilize OVP to build a virtual platform, then integrate OVPsim with Cadence�s Incisive Software eXtensions product, enables much more rigorous and robust verification of hardware/software interactions.� System and software developers can now take the same industry leading verification technology and methodology being used on the design of their SoC for verification of the virtual platform before sharing it with application developers, or of the complete application software system.�

Doulos, John Aynsley, CTO

www.doulos.com

"Part of the OSCI TLM-2.0 value proposition is that it makes the development of fast virtual platforms for software development easier to achieve. The alignment of OVP with the TLM-2.0 standard helps address one of the critical requirements for the successful deployment of virtual platforms, which is the ready availability of processor models."


GreenSoCs, Mark Burton

www.greensocs.com/

GreenSocs provides Open Source SystemC infrastructure, and welcomes�all open source initiatives in this space. Open Virtual Platforms,�with its processor and peripheral modeling technology is a welcome�addition to the embedded systems development community.�

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Dr. Anshul Kumar, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

www.cse.iitd.ac.in

�Open Virtual Platforms is a perfect fit for universities doing research in the area of embedded systems. The free and open aspect of OVP is great, however it is the ease of use and simulation performance of the technology that make it truly useful to us."

Posedge Software, Dave Von Bank, President

www.posedgesoft.com

"As a service provider in both the hardware verification and embedded software segments, we have a long history with hardware-software co-verification environments with roots back to its infancy in the mid-1990s.� There are several ideal characteristics of such an environment: speed, processor and peripheral model availability, model accuracy, and robust debugging capabilities - all without requiring any significant changes to the hardware or software of the target system.� With the integration of the OVP simulator and Cadence's Specman Elite ISX tool, we can now add advanced verification capabilities including coverage-driven, constrained-random verification.� The combination of characteristics represents the Holy Grail of hardware-software co-verification."

University of Southampton, Dr. Mark Zwolinski, Professor

www.ecs.soton.ac.uk

�Open Virtual Platforms has been an outstanding tool for my students. Its ease of use and speed of simulation performance has enabled them to build and debug complex models of processors and systems.�

University of Washington, Andrew Putnam, Researcher

www.cs.washington.edu

"OVP is awesome. I�m working on large, many-core systems, and was able to get a 1024 core system running in minutes. With Dhrystone benchmark performance of over 450 MIPS, OVPsim demonstrates that it scales well and runs impressively fast."

VinChip, Chezi Ganesan, President & CEO

www.vinchip.com

"VinChip, an established developer of hardware IP cores, believes that there is significant opportunity in developing models at a higher level of abstraction.� Open Virtual Platforms enables IP providers like VinChip to add more value to our product line."

Quotations from Open Virtual Platforms Launch:

Azul Systems Inc., John Brennan, VP Hardware Engineering

http://www.azulsystems.com/

Azul Systems, a global provider of enterprise server appliances that deliver compute and memory resources as a shared network service to transaction-intensive applications, such as those built on the Java platform, has successfully used the OVP technology to develop a virtual platform for the Azul Vega multiprocessing appliance (Azul Compute Appliance). This OVP-based platform has enabled our software development team to streamline the development process overall. In addition, the Azul OS boots just as fast on the OVP platform as it does on the SoC.

Beyond Semiconductor, Matjaz Breskvar, Founder & CEO

http://www.beyondsemi.com/

Beyond Semiconductor is excited to have models of our processor IP available for the embedded software community through the open source OVP initiative. �This helps our customers employ the BeyondSemi IP on their SoC and MPSoCs, and increases the choice of software/hardware development tools available to our customers.

Brian Bailey, consultant

http://brianbailey.us/

Finally! �With OVP, we have group of people and companies that realizes that software verification and debug has not yet become a solved issue and also understands that it is not a trivial problem. At the same time, they have also identified the primary reason holding virtual platforms back from more general adoption, that being model interoperability. Without these problems being solved the RTL level never would have taken off either.

Some have said that the system level virtual platform is the 'killer app' for ESL. �But companies that make these tools continue to struggle. �Virtual platforms are the rallying point for an ESL methodology but so far nobody has managed to create the right level of performance with the debug abilities necessary. �OVP promises to change this situation with a new model execution platform that could transform the industry.

CalyptoTM Design Systems Inc., Mitch Dale, Marketing Director

http://www.calypto.com/

ESL has become a mainstream design methodology; as such, customers require system-level to verified RTL design flows built on best of class tools connected through standard, open interfaces. Open source, OVP system modeling tools are an important part of the ESL design flow, linking software developers to advanced system-level hardware design methods.

Carbon Design SystemsTM Inc., Bill Neifert, CTO

http://www.carbondesignsystems.com/

As the supplier of Carbon Model Studio, a solution for the automatic generation, validation and implementation of hardware-accurate software models, we have found that design teams value a tool offering a broad range of debug capabilities.� With a holistic approach to system/software modeling, OVP presents an innovative way for them to manage the testing of their embedded software.

Carnegie Mellon University, Prof. Don Thomas

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~thomas/

In research and education, around processor architectures and embedded software, it is essential to have a good environment to evaluate alternatives.� The creation of OVP provides us with a flexible and powerful technology to develop models of complex multi-core systems to be the building blocks we need.

CriticalBlue, David Stewart, CEO

http://www.criticalblue.com/

As a pioneer of software-driven design methodologies, CriticalBlue applauds effective, industry-wide initiatives such as OVP. By making generally available a valuable and critical technology resource, OVP will provide a common technology foundation that accelerates the mainstream adoption of practical end-to-end design solutions.

Denali Software Inc., Mark Gogolewski, CTO

http://www.denali.com/

The fundamental excitement around the OVP launch is due to the ability for the industry to coalesce around an open infrastructure and enable real software development earlier in the design process.� This effectively creates a new market for model developers to extend our support to software developers in multicore environments.

ElementCXI, Inc., Bob Barker, VP Business Development

http://www.elementcxi.com/

The OVP approach of open sourcing key technology will help our customers by reducing their risk of adopting new proprietary technologies.

EVE, Lauro Rizzatti, General Manager of EVE-USA, VP Marketing

http://www.eve-team.com/

OVP will enable a community discussion around embedded software verification, helping our customers to implement better verification methodology and in the end promoting better and broader use of our verification products.

Forte Design Systems Inc., John Sanguinetti, CTO and founder

http://www.forteds.com/

Virtual platforms are one of the most valuable components of a system design environment. They provide the basis for system verification and design exploration.� Open Virtual Platforms is an important technology that will allow the industry to standardize on the underlying framework for creating virtual platforms and models.

Imperas Ltd., Simon Davidmann, CEO and founder

http://www.imperas.com/

As the enabling technology for embedded software development, Imperas believes that a software virtual platform infrastructure should include free models� and be freely available.� This infrastructure benefits the complete OVP ecosystem, enabling software development success for users, new markets for tool developers, a more level playing field for IP providers, and more opportunities for service providers.

Jennic Ltd., Jim Lindop, founder and CEO

http://www.jennic.com/

With the proliferation of embedded processors, like those in our ZigBee devices, the OVP models will become very useful for the efficient development of application software. As devices get more complex, more applications will need to be developed on virtual platforms such as OVP.

MIPS Technologies Inc., Jack Browne, VP Marketing

http://www.mips.com/

OVP provides another channel for MIPS to expose SoC architects and embedded software developers to our processor IP, and makes it easier for our customers to port applications to our processors.� With software now a major part of overall SoC development costs, OVP models and associated tools will enable our customers to accelerate their SoC deliveries.

SpringSoft Inc., Scott Sandler, US CEO

www.springsoft.com

As designs become more complex with more processors, protocols, code, and concurrency, OVP promises to help resolve the increasing difficulty of embedded software verification and debug by enabling a new generation of tools. We look forward to the resulting increase in our market opportunity.

SiBridge Technologies, Samir Shroff, founder and VP Engineering

http://www.sibridgetech.com/

Our customers are asking us to do more application software verification.� The hardware virtual platforms we have used previously for firmware development are just not fast enough for embedded software development.� OVP will allow us to satisfy our customers and grow our business.

Sigmatix, Dave Kelf, President and CEO

www.sigmatix.com

A wave of practical solutions are emerging, based on a new understanding of the design issues associated with combined hardware and software functional implementation. This bold and exciting move by Imperas demonstrates a departure from EDA norms, and the kind of revolutionary thinking we need. We see OVP as a catalyst for a new direction in system design solutions.

Tensilica Inc., Chris Jones, Director of Strategic Alliances

http://www.tensilica.com/

The rapidly evolving realm of ESL modeling tools is a vital ingredient in the growth of multi-processor SOCs.� This OVP Initiative introduced by Imperas has the potential to be a catalyst in advancing the rate of growth of MPSOC designs.

VDC, Matt Volckmann, Senior Analyst/Program Manager, Embedded Software

www.vdcresearch.com

�There is no question that if the industry is able to agree on a set of common set of standards for building virtual platforms, market participants would be in a better position to collaborate with one other, leverage existing designs, and raise the overall level of productivity in creating virtual prototypes. This is something that is clearly needed for virtual platform methodologies to be successful in the long run. Imperas�s open source model is an interesting concept here, and the early list of participants is encouraging, especially at the semiconductor IP level. Open source software has certainly changed the landscape in numerous software markets to date, and in VDC�s opinion a move toward this type of a model has the potential to alter the dynamics of the current market.�