Carbon enhances ARM IP portfolio

More specifically, Carbon Design System noted that its IP portfolio now includes the entire Cortex and ARM11 families of processors, along with ARM9 and ARM7 family of processors. Moreover, it provides support for the ARM AMBA NIC301 Network Interconnect, as well as the AMBA AXI, AHB and APB peripherals.

Carbonized models of ARM IP, Carbon added, are compiled directly from the original register transfer level (RTL) code to guarantee implementation accuracy. These models can be integrated into any virtual prototype system used for architectural analysis and pre-silicon hardware/software validation, including Carbon SoC Designer and OSCI SystemC platforms.

The Carbonized models feature debugger integrations for both software developers and hardware engineers with support for semi-hosting, break pointing and single-stepping, the company said.

In April, Carbon and EDA company CoWare Inc. joined forces to develop implementation-accurate models of ARM IP targeted for CoWare's SystemC-based designs.

The models and model kits include solutions for the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, AMBA3 Interconnect (PL301) matrix, and others.

It is also interesting to recall that Carbon took over future development, support and sale of ARM's SoC Designer tool in 2008".

Key members of the ARM SoC Designer development team then joined Carbon Design Systems and formed a new Carbon development office located in Irvine, California. Carbon also gained access to ARM intellectual property (IP) in order to optimize its tools to generate cycle-accurate models of ARM processors, PrimeCell peripherals and fabric IP.