EDA startup develops new design language

EDA startup develops new design language
MANCHESTER, U.K. — Proprietary design languages have always been a tough sell, but SpiraTech Ltd., an EDA startup here, thinks it has such unique technology that its CY language will find a compelling niche. SpiraTech's founders previously developed languages and tools for Fujitsu's International Computers Ltd. (ICL) subsidiary, but say that what they have now is completely new.

SpiraTech was formed after ICL, which marketed its VHDL+ language and Supervise simulator in the late 1990s, gave up on these offerings and closed its Design Automation division at the end of 1999. But the new company is totally self-funded and did not acquire rights to any ICL or Fujitsu technology, said Chris Jones, SpiraTech's director of engineering.

Besides Jones, who was on the ICL engineering team, the founders include managing director Steve Hodgson, who headed the ICL Design Automation group; technology director Kamal Hashmi, who headed language development at ICL; and simulation director Zak Shaar, who was in charge of simulation development at ICL.

Since its launch in October 2000, SpiraTech has developed the CY language and Sorceri tool set. Currently available is CYmulator, a simulation product that lets users simulate CY models along with SystemC, Verilog and VHDL. Under development are CYanalyse, a coverage tool, and CYcapture, a block-diagram design entry tool.

SpiraTech describes itself as a "verification company with a difference." It does so because system-level design is not yet totally accepted, said business development manager Tony Palmer. "We are a system-level design company, but to the outside world, until system-level design gets full recognition, we're promoting the verification side," he said.

"Yes, we brought forth yet another language," said Jones. "But it has features none of the others have. In the outside world, there are no other languages that let you specify interfaces the way you can in CY."

Jones said that CY semantics are similar to those of VHDL+ and of Chisle, the proprietary ICL language that preceded VHDL+. But he termed it a "completely new language with a C-style syntax" that is much easier to read and write than VHDL+, and is not constrained by VHDL. CY goes from a high level of abstraction to "immediately above RTL [register-transfer level]," he said.

So why not just use SystemC, a developing standard backed by many companies? Jones said that CY has a number of built-in features that SystemC lacks. These include temporal features and interface semantics.

For example, CY claims to support hierarchical interface protocol specifications and has multiple semantics for the conjunction of functionality with interface protocols. It has built-in resources for queues, stacks and sets, along with support for pipelines and transaction overlap.

What it doesn't have, Jones acknowledged, is any automated translation to RTL Verilog or VHDL. "We haven't yet investigated behavioral synthesis," he said. Jones also said that SpiraTech plans to open the language in the future, but not for now, because "once a language becomes a standard, it becomes inflexible."

SpiraTech claims that CY, along with CYmulator, supports a unique "multilevel interface technology" that allows the reuse of tests throughout the design flow. It is said to provide clearly defined communication channels between design tasks, stages and disciplines, and connects design and test units through well-defined interfaces. These units can be at different levels of abstraction and can use different languages.

SpiraTech also claims uniqueness with its "behavioral signature" technology, in which sequences of low-level activity can be linked to higher-level behavior and vice versa. CYmulator provides a graphical "sequence display" that lets users visualize this relationship.

The company says that CYanalyse will provide not only code and data coverage, but also sequence coverage. CYcapture, for its part, will offer a graphical way to capture CY-language models through block diagrams and flow charts.

Currently, SpiraTech is selling only CYmulator licenses. Palmer said that Power X Ltd., a now-bankrupt networking firm, was one early customer. Other current customers are all located in the U.K., Palmer said, but he declined to name them.

Thus far, Palmer said, SpiraTech has been entirely self-funded. He said the 12-person company will seek its first external funding round later this year and use the proceeds to further develop and market its offerings in the U.K. and Europe. SpiraTech expects that a second round of funding, in another 18 months or so, will enable it to expand to the U.S. market and elsewhere in the world.

The good news, said Palmer, is that SpiraTech has been "profitable from day one." Up until now, it has derived much of its revenue from consulting. The company's challenge now is to parlay its language and design expertise into off-the-shelf EDA products with broad appeal.