Tensilica Picks EVE's ZeBu for Validation of Diamond Video Core

Fast Emulation System Used for Conformance Testing, Codec Development, Multi-Processor Synchronization Validation

Santa Clara, Calif. –– September 18, 2007 –– EVE, the leader in hardware/software co-verification, today announced that Tensilica, Inc., used EVE’s ZeBu to validate the Diamond 38xVDO Video Engines.
Targeted at mobile handsets and personal media players (PMPs), Tensilica’s Diamond Standard Video Engines are fully programmable to support VGA and standard definition (SD, also known as D1) video codecs.

ZeBu (for Zero Bugs) gives Tensilica verification engineers an easy-to-use and affordable solution that combines the best aspects of traditional emulation and rapid prototyping systems. It is used in Tensilica’s system-level regression testing, hardware/software integration, application and codec development, conformance testing and profiling. ZeBu also proved useful in validating multi-processor synchronous debugging. In addition to allowing software engineers to validate codecs, ZeBu also helped Tensilica’s engineers find subtle bugs during product development related to clock tree issues missed during register transfer level (RTL) simulation.

“Our challenge in bringing our video solution to market was to concurrently design the optimized processor cores and software codecs,” says Beatrice Fu, senior vice president of Engineering at Tensilica. “ZeBu allowed us to validate changing codec and hardware revisions almost immediately. The result was a high confidence that our final product, really a combination of hardware and software, would just work.”
ZeBu is used during the system-integration phase of the design cycle where multiple logic blocks, multiple chips and embedded software must be verified simultaneously. Hardware design and software development teams can share the same system and design representation, and collaborate when debugging complex hardware/software interactions.
Architected with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), ZeBu is configured for designs from 12.5- to 100-million application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) gates in a compact, rack-mountable unit. It emulates designs with a speed of 20 megahertz (MHz) at the transaction level and in in-circuit emulation (ICE) or synthesizable testbench (STB) mode. It can be configured to accommodate up to 200-million ASIC gates through two interconnected units.

Adds Alain Raynaud, EVE’s technical director: “We’re quite proud of our strong partnership with Tensilica. Through this relationship, Tensilica has helped prove that ZeBu can increase engineering productivity, especially as a common platform for hardware and software engineers, thus reducing the time to market.”

About EVE

EVE is the worldwide leader in hardware/software co-verification solutions, including hardware description language (HDL) acceleration and extremely fast emulation. EVE products significantly shorten the overall verification cycle of complex integrated circuits and electronic systems designs. Its products also work in conjunction with popular Verilog, SystemVerilog, and VHDL-based software simulators from Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems and Mentor Graphics. Its United States headquarters are in Santa Clara, Calif. Telephone: (408) 855-3200. Facsimile: (408) 845-9209. Corporate headquarters are in Palaiseau, France. Telephone: (33) 1 64.53.27.30. Fax: (33) 1 64.53.27.40. Email: info@eve-team.com. Website: http://www.eve-team.com.

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