Synopsys unveils multicore optimization technology

Anne-Françoise PELE, EE Times -- EDN, April 5, 2011

Embedded in the company's Platform Architect, Synopsys Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) said the Multicore Optimization Technology is meant for performance analysis and early definition of multicore system architectures in SystemC.

With Multicore Optimization Technology, users of of Platform Architect can capture HW/SW performance models of multicore system architectures in the early concept phase for robust performance measurement and trade-off analysis, months prior to software availability.

Synopsys' Platform Architect is a SystemC TLM standards-based graphical environment for capturing, configuring, simulating, and analyzing the system-level performance of multicore systems and next-generation SoC architectures. Platform Architect enables system designers to explore and optimize the hardware-software partitioning and the configuration of the SoC infrastructure, specifically the global interconnect and memory subsystem.

Platform Architect highlights:

• Hardware-Software Partitioning and Optimization of Multicore Systems
• SoC Interconnect and Memory Subsystem Performance Optimization
• Efficient Exploration Using Traffic Generation & Cycle-Accurate TLM Interconnect Models
• Powerful Performance Analysis Visualization for Root-Cause and Sensitivity Analysis
• Hardware-Software Validation Using Cycle-Accurate TLM Processor Models
• IEEE 1666 SystemC TLM Standards-based Environment

Synopsys' Multicore Optimization Technology is claimed to enable Platform Architect users to create task-driven workload models of the end-product application, known as task-graphs, enabling analysis and optimization of HW/SW partitioning and system performance.

Once HW/SW partitioning is finalized, architects reuse the same task-graphs and task-driven traffic for SoC-level architecture exploration and IP selection, as well as interconnect and memory subsystem performance optimization.

Among benefits, Synopsys outlined optimized multicore system performance, shorter evaluation times and faster time-to-market.

Availability:
Synopsys Multicore Optimization Technology for Platform Architect is available now.

To access the Platform Architect datasheet, click here.

This article originally appeared on EE Times.