Co-Design pulls Superlog from OVI consideration

Co-Design pulls Superlog from OVI consideration
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Co-Design Automation Inc. has withdrawn its Superlog high-level design language from consideration by the architectural language technical subcommittee of Open Verilog International (OVI), although Simon Davidmann, president and chief executive officer of Co-Design, will continue to sit on the OVI board.

But the news has apparently not been conveyed to OVI, whose architectural subcommittee meets this Wednesday (Sept. 15). "They have not indicated they have withdrawn," said Dennis Brophy, OVI chairman. "At this time they have not put forward a spec for review. It's hard for me to understand how you can withdraw something that hasn't been submitted."

Davidmann's appointment to the OVI board and Co-Design's offer of Superlog — which the company says offers the best features of C, Verilog and VHDL for architectural-level design in a coherent new purpose-written language — were both announced in July. Brophy said he expects Davidmann to appear at this week's committee meeting.

Davidmann said Superlog had been withdrawn because there were factions within the OVI committee insisting that the language be put into the public domain while it was debated and standardized within the technical committee.

"Superlog is still only available under NDA [nondisclosure agreement]," Davidmann explained. "Our objective is that it will be put in the public domain eventually, but we have to have control over it while it is developing. We have a time scale for that development process."

"Our methodology is that it needs to be open," Brophy said. "That openness must allow OVI committee scrutiny. It doesn't need to be a public domain type thing, but it needs to be open enough for participants in OVI to review it."

Despite the fact that Superlog is apparently no longer under consideration by OVI, Davidmann said that he and Co-Design would continue to support OVI's efforts.

"We're still active on the OVI architecture committee. Indeed we've helped set up the demonstrator. I believe that when users back Superlog it will be standardized. But it should be a de facto standard not a committee-driven thing."

As a result, Davidmann said, the only languages under consideration within the OVI architectural language technical subcommittee are C, C++ and Java. And despite Co-Design's continued support, Davidmann said he believes the OVI technical subcommittee, which ultimately intends to endorse one approach, will have a tough time selecting any of these languages.

"They are not hardware design languages; they are software programming languages," he said. "The requirements they [the committee] have laid down are pretty tough to meet. What we have will meet them but I don't believe a software programming language will meet those requirements."