Out in Front: June 20, 1996
I-Logix's Statemate Magnum, an embedded-system-simulation and software-synthesis tool, lets you graphically define and analyze a complex hardware/software system. You use Magnum's Sharpshooter code generators to automatically generate an executable specification of the design in Verilog or VHDL for the hardware portions of the system and C or Ada for the software. You can synthesize the hardware code with Synopsys (Mountain View, CA) synthesis tools. Sharpshooter's generated code is a "virtual prototype" that you simulate and debug with Magnum's Trailblazer simulator.Magnum offers three types of graphical editors for describing system behavior: state, activity, and module charts. You use "statecharts," extensions of state-transition diagrams, to describe system time-variant behavior, including control and timing behavior and events that produce a change in system operation. Statecharts are hierarchical and can show concurrent or parallel processes. Activity charts let you partition a system into functional units. The charts depict the units and the data and control interfaces among them. Module charts display the structural view of a system by showing how activity-chart functionality and state-chart behavior are allocated to parts of an actual system. Module-chart components can be software or hardware modules or subsystems combining both software and hardware. Magnum also has graphical input/output panels that you use to create an animated graphical model of a user or internal interface. You can include these panels with Trailblazer simulations, either to help drive the simulation or to visualize simulated behavior.
Statemate Magnum is available now at a starting price of $25,000. The tool runs on Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun workstations. Sharpshooter code generators with Verilog and VHDL cost $10,000 each; with C code, $20,000; and with Ada, $30,000.
—by Jim Lipman
I-Logix, Andover, MA. (508) 682-2100, fax (508) 682-5995.