Seamless Success Stories
"Besides the normal CPU bus access for program and data RAM, when DMA bus access was utilized, only Seamless was able to maintain the simulation speed. Other tools' performance degraded and could not handle basic simulation routines."
Hiroshi Sugawara, Sony Semiconductor Manager
"Even given Alcatel's advanced system debugging methodologies, co-verification yielded a much greater observability and controllability of the system."
Gjalt de Jong, Alcatel Antwerp facility
"With Seamless, we can enable the software development to begin before any hardware is done, and that has been a major bottleneck in the past."
Antti Suhonen, Nokia Hardware Engineer
How industry leaders achieve results with Seamless
Alcatel - provider of end-to-end communications solutions enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to optimize content delivery With Alcatel's application of Seamless, architectural issues were uncovered, including throughput problems due to scheduling, fifo sizing, protocol conversions, and incorrect implementation due to misinterpretations of specifications.Altera FPGA Platform Evaluation Using Seamless
Beijing Embedded System Key Lab - Opened in February 2003, the Beijing Embedded System Key Lab is a large, state-of-the-art embedded system laboratory dedicated to training China's next generation of embedded system design engineers Seamless®, a co-verification tool from Mentor Graphics®, verifies the correct interaction between the chip's hardware and software early in the design process and identifies areas where performance can be improved. By speeding the initial design capture and verification of core-based SoCs, Seamless increases the chance of first-pass success.
Cypress Semiconductor (formerly In-System Design) - supplier of high-performance integrated circuits for network infrastructure and access equipment The ability to verify hardware and software interfaces in a virtual hardware prototype provided immediate advantages for Cypress Semiconductor as project schedules slipped resulting in a delayed time to market. According to Cypress, co-simulation proved not only to be an option for verification, but a requirement for program development.
Ericsson - communications supplier providing solutions in mobile and broadband internet for mobile systems including 3G, broadband multi-service networks and broadband access Ericsson UAB leveraged the Seamless? patented optimization technology for a large telecom ASIC design project. The improvement in communication between Ericsson's hardware and software design teams early in the project was a significant benefit. Previously, only the system designers had insight into both the hardware and software issues.
Hughes Network Systems - provider of digital television entertainment, broadband satellite networks and services, and global video and data broadcasting To verify and debug the RTL code developed for the packet processor, Hughes successfully verified their broadband-over-satellite ground communications terminal design. The total size of the ASIC was seven million gates, including six Tensilica? Xtensa? configurable processor cores.
Hyperchip Inc. - Internet routing equipment supplier bringing together connection-oriented networks (ATM, Frame Relay, TDM) with the flexibility of connection-less networks (IP) This customer success describes a higher level of software abstraction. Hardware/software co-verification is typically performed at a low level of abstraction, using an instruction set simulation (ISS) model of a CPU in conjunction with a Verilog or VHDL model of the rest of the design. The CPU subsystem was replaced by an RTOS simulator and application code written to the Application Programmers Interface (API) of the RTOS. Verilog or VHDL is still used to model the rest of the design.
Lucent Technologies (Lucent's InterNetworking Systems Unit - formerly Ascend Communications) - developer of next-generation data networking Ascend adopted Seamless to streamline the overall system integration. By the time the code checkout was complete 24 software errors and 5 hardware errors had been isolated and corrected.
Nokia - mobile phone supplier and supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks Nokia is so sold on the capabilities of Seamless that senior management committed the resources of a full-time hardware engineer to work side-by-side with Mentor Graphics' design engineers. Hardware/software co-design continues to represent a key component of Nokia's product development process.
Packet Video - networking and communications service and infrastructure provider to established carriers, new network operators, wireless service providers and enterprises Northern Telecom's desire to use co-verification arose from the software group's strong need to have access to hardware earlier in the design cycle in order to test and adjust complicated algorithms, control constant determination, verify software/hardware interfaces, and conduct performance modeling.
STMicroelectronics - semiconductor solutions provider for microelectronics applications STMicroelectronics used one part of the system-to-RTL flow, known as 'RTL Platforms', based on hardware/software co-verification, to reduce the development time of a complex multi-processor design. The device is a network termination or home gateway interfacing residential LANs to an ADSL access network.