CoWare has announced a major new release of its SystemC-based ConvergenSC system-on-chip (SoC) design tools. The software tool is expected to speed adoption of electronic system level (ESL) design methodologies by system designers and architects. The release combines powerful new features than enable faster modeling and debugging of IP models, platform subsystems, and SoC designs in SystemC. The open environment is designed to ease the integration of internal tools and IP into the system-level flow.

ConvergenSC now features a powerful SystemC integrated development and debug environment (IDE) based on Eclipse. By adding SystemC graphical debugging and managed builds process to ConvergenSC's fast SystemC simulator and thread-aware debugging environment, users can easily integrate Eclipse plug-ins into their ConvergenSC environment.

"ConvergenSC's powerful environment has enabled us to begin the transition from an RTL-only methodology to designing at a higher level of abstraction in SystemC," said Manoj Bhatnagar, principal engineer for CPE system architecture at Centillium Communications, Inc. "The Eclipse-based SystemC IDE is very feature rich, and it provided production quality capabilities needed for hardware/software development. The Eclipse IDE enabled us to be productive immediately while adopting SystemC and ESL for the first time."

With the new release, capabilities have been added that ease integration of user IP and enable reuse of platforms in derivative designs, magnifying the benefits of ESL methods. As interactions between hardware and software become more complex, ESL design tools are needed to designing and reusing these subsystems.

Now users have a way to export fixed platform subsystems, import subsystems for SoC assembly and extension, develop platforms hierarchically, and open support for user TLM specifications. With these capabilities, platform providers can more easily create system-level models of platform subsystems for customers' rapid evaluation, customization, and design-in.

"With the latest release of ConvergenSC, platform providers and their customers have a solution for design and debug with an expanded model library, standards support, and open tool architecture for the industry's broadest library of SystemC IP," said Mark Milligan, vice president of marketing, CoWare. "The result is more efficient modeling and reuse of IP and platform subsystems to greatly reduce development time and cost."