ACADEMIA

Sun Microsystems and Synopsys today announced an agreement to certify Synopsys' VCS comprehensive RTL verification solution, a key component of the Discovery Verification Platform, for the Sun Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) for both Sun UltraSPARC and AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Fire servers. The combination of the VCS solution's native verification technologies with the Solaris10 OS and Sun Fire x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by AMD Opteron processors is anticipated to provide significant productivity gains for engineering teams developing next-generation system-on-chip designs. "Synopsys tools have supported the Sun Solaris OS and UltraSPARC processor-based platforms for the past two decades," said Stephen Borcich, vice president, Partner Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sun values Synopsys' leadership position in the verification domain and extensively uses its broad line of solutions for its SPARC processor and ASIC development. With this most recent collaboration, Synopsys will help deliver the additional benefits of Solaris 10 features, including Dynamic Tracing for the UltraSPARC and x64 platforms to mutual customers." The VCS solution utilizes a unique, single-compiler architecture to natively compile design, testbench, assertions and verification IP in order to speed verification performance by up to five times compared with separate simulation and verification tools. The collaboration between Sun and Synopsys focuses on the optimization of the VCS solution's native code generation for the x64 platforms and the Solaris 10 OS. The combination of the VCS solution, running on the Solaris 10 OS with Sun Fire x64 platforms, is expected to provide engineering teams with the high performance and productivity needed to verify their next-generation designs. "As a user of both Synopsys' VCS solution and Sun's server and operating system platforms, we applaud this new initiative," said Mike Hames, senior vice president, Application Specific Products, Texas Instruments. "The blend of VCS' advanced native verification technologies optimized for Sun's industry-leading x64 servers is expected to accelerate our verification processes." "As a recognized leader in advanced electronics, Toshiba will be able to take advantage of the industry's comprehensive RTL verification solution, VCS from Synopsys, along with the robustness of the Solaris 10 OS on lower-cost platforms," said Tamotsu Hiwatashi, senior manager of planning dept., System LSI Dept., System LSI Division I, Toshiba Corporation Semiconductor Company. "The combination of VCS and Solaris 10 on x64 promises to be a powerful tool in our electronic design arsenal." "AMD is at its core a customer-centric company and a large part of delivering on customer needs includes our collaboration with companies like Synopsys and Sun that develop innovative products to further the computing experience," said Joe Menard, corporate vice president of Software Strategy at AMD. "We understand firsthand a technology company's need to achieve rigorous verification goals and on-time project milestones. Coupling AMD64-based Sun Fire servers and the Solaris 10 OS with VCS can generate the higher productivity required for advanced system-on-chip designs." "Synopsys is a key verification partner with Sun's microprocessor development team," said George Zafiropolous, vice president of Marketing, Verification Group, Synopsys, Inc. "We welcome the opportunity to work together with Sun to certify our VCS verification solution for the Solaris 10 OS and x64 platform. We believe this can deliver additional scalable verification productivity for our mutual customers." Synopsys Discovery Verification Platform The Discovery Verification Platform is a unified environment that provides high performance and efficiency of interaction among all platform components, including mixed-HDL simulation, mixed-signal, system-level verification, assertions, DesignWare verification intellectual property, code coverage, functional coverage, testbenches and formal analysis. Combined with support for industry-standard hardware design and verification languages, including Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog, SystemC and OpenVera, and Synopsys' proven Reference Verification Methodology, the Discovery Verification Platform helps designers achieve higher levels of verification productivity by contributing to first-time silicon success within required project cycles.