Synopsys announces Virtual Platform for Marvell's PXA3xx application processors
(Product News, 10 Jul 2007 )
Synopsys has announced the availability of the DesignWare VPXA3 Virtual Platform for development of smartphones, hand-held and consumer electronics devices that use Marvell PXA3xx XScale technology next-generation application processor. The DesignWare VPXA3 Virtual Platform is now available to engineers who want to evaluate and use the Marvell PXA3xx in their portable and handheld devices. Synopsys' Virtual Platforms improve design quality and shorten time-to-market by allowing the software team to start software development up to nine months before the silicon prototype is available. By continuously integrating the software and hardware before hardware is available, developers are able to find and fix significant software and hardware integration issues before tape-out.
The DesignWare VPXA3 Virtual Platform provides software engineers with a high-speed, pre-silicon software execution environment that allows the development of system-on-chip- (SoC) related software before hardware is available. The Virtual Platform technology enables the creation of a software model of a complete system that fully mirrors the functionality of a complex, multicore hardware platform. The DesignWare Virtual Platforms combine high- speed processor instruction-set simulators and high-level, fully functional transaction-level models (TLMs) of the hardware building blocks to provide a high-level model of the hardware to the software developer.
Synopsys also provides the complete hardware/software development and validation environment for designers using the Marvell PXA application processors. Engineers at Marvell Technology, a leader in storage, communications and consumer silicon solutions, used the DesignWare VPXA3 Virtual Platform for pre- and post-silicon software development, hardware/software integration, and system validation. The DesignWare VPXA3 Virtual Platform helped Marvell engineers shorten time-to-market and improve design quality, and also allowed them to execute their software -- including the post-silicon software tests -- before the hardware was available.
