ST teams with French EDA start-up for ESL tools

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 5/29/2007

To facilitate broad use of virtual platform assembly for multiple remote non-expert end users and enabling fast deployment of virtual components, Europe’s largest chipmaker STMicroelectronics and Paris-based design tool start-up Magillem Design Services SAS have partnered to deliver design tools based on the IP-XACT schema from The SPIRIT Consortium, the companies reported Monday.

STMicroelectronics, which is a founding member of The SPIRIT consortium, said it was looking for a software tool to encapsulate its existing ESL flow in the IP-XACT format, along with some ST-specific data. As well, graphical representation of a dedicated platform had to be tuned to the ST guidelines, the company noted.

Magillem’s graphical front end connected to the internal IP yellow pages shortened the learning curve of a new platform, giving software end users the exact representation of the hardware and allowing them to easily change the virtual component parameters they have access to.

With the help of the Magillem IDE, ST said all the steps of the flow have been encapsulated in a standard IP-XACT format, with the representation of the platform and the dedicated flow monitoring meeting its requirements.

Frank Ghenassia, director of system platform group at STMicroelectronics said in a statement, “The IP-XACT framework developed by MDS enables us to integrate all our system platform technologies into a consistent environment, providing a simpler, more automated flow to hardware architects and verification engineers. Feedback from first users is very positive and we expect to deploy the solution throughout the year.”

Cyril Spasevski, CTO of Magillem added, “Designers at STM now have the capability to run the software with a minimal effort, at every build and compilation steps. All IP and Platform parameters are accessible without HDL or SystemC expertise."