News Release from: CoWare
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 25 October 2005
C compiler is integral to processor design tools
CoWare is to continue to deliver ACE's C-compiler technology deeply integrated into the CoWare Lisatek processor design tool suite.
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CoWare and ACE Associated Compiler Experts have concluded a multiyear strategic alliance in which CoWare will continue to deliver ACE's C-compiler technology deeply integrated into the CoWare Lisatek processor design tool suite. In addition, CoWare and ACE will closely co-operate on future technologies to address multi-processor system design. 'Establishing close partnerships with providers of leading-edge technologies, while continuing to strengthen our core competencies, are an integral part of CoWare's strategy', said Alan Naumann, CEO of CoWare.
'Over the last several years, our processor design customers have confirmed that ACE has the strongest technology for C-compiler development, which they enjoy as part of our Lisatek tool suite'.
'CoWare is the leading pioneer in the custom processor design market', said Martijn de Lange, Chairman of the Board, ACE Associated Compiler Experts.
'We are pleased to continue and expand our successful relationship as it will broaden the impact of our technology as part of a new design paradigm'.
As complex multimedia processing in consumer devices is becoming main stream, many design teams are facing the limitations of their off-the-shelf application processors.
Resorting to hardwired implementation is a major risk given competitive pressures for flexibility.
The addition of multiple, general purpose processors does not meet power, performance and cost requirements.
The CoWare Lisatek solution allows the design of custom processors by specifying the optimum instruction set, profiling the application on the automatically generated processor model and finally generating the synthesisable RTL from the same processor model.
However, only the automated generation of the corresponding optimum C-compiler provides a full custom processor design flow, since writing pure assembly code is not productive.
The CoWare tools increase the productivity of processor design teams by a factor of 5-10x, bringing the design time down from years to months.
compiler design is a complex task with a long learning curve, typically limited to very few experts in semiconductor houses.
With the CoSy Express technology embedded into the Lisatek tool chain, this expertise is packaged for design teams that can only afford to build up basic compiler knowledge.
Using the structured Lisatek approach, it is possible to specify the semantics of the processor instructions and to let CoSy Express generate an optimising compiler.
No specific knowledge of the advanced compiler framework or the optimisation functions is required to produce the initial validating compiler.
Together with the selection of the instruction set and the optimisation of the C-application code, the designer of custom processor can use the C-compiler technology to generate an implementation which fulfils the power, cost and flexibility requirements.
When custom processors are used for a wider range of applications or by a wide range of different customers, processor design teams have to deliver the best tailored optimising compiler available.
Using the compiler data base generated by CoWare Lisatek, design teams can now apply the full range of the ACE CoSy technology to further optimise the C-compiler performance, typically resulting in significantly better performance.
CoWare and ACE are delivering an open flow from Lisatek into CoSy, thus preserving the investment into the initial C-compiler design.
While solving today's design problems, CoWare and ACE have started a multiyear technology co-operation, which allows for efficient implementation of applications on multiple, heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures.
CoWare will leverage its entire ESL design tool suite with SPW for application design, Lisatek for custom processor design and ConvergenSC for platform design, and ACE will utilise the CoSy compiler development framework to deliver high-performance compiler generation solutions for a broad range of processors.
The CoWare Lisatek product family is available today.
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