HDL and system-level design integrated into one tool - 14 February 2001 - ASIC Design Services

HDL and system-level design integrated into one tool
14 February 2001, Design Automation

Innoveda is now offering Visual Elite, an advanced HDL and system-level design tool that supports C/C++, VHDL and Verilog modelling with a new state-of-the-art graphical user interface (GUI) and multi-language textual and graphical editors. This next generation of the company's popular Visual HDL tool for high-level graphical and textual design, verification and reuse is the first to provide a single complete environment for C and HDL.

Visual Elite is part of the Innoveda SLD suite. According to Guy Moshe, Senior Vice President of Innoveda's SLD Group and General Manager, Israel, "This advanced tool offers a real breakthrough in the design of systems and hardware blocks, and provides major advances in design scalability. It provides a design platform with a scope that is truly system-wide."

Capabilities

Visual Elite enables users to create C/C++, VHDL and Verilog blocks in a single tool; perform co-simulation of Verilog and VHDL; and co-simulate C/C++ and HDL. Users can generate a virtual prototype of the system (C-based design) that can be linked to the application software for early verification of the software against the system hardware model.

Visual Elite supports system-level design, enabling users to capture and integrate their specification at any level and co-simulate both C++ and HDL, all in the same design environment through a common GUI. Visual HDL users upgrading to Visual Elite will find their design databases can be transferred completely. No data is lost and the application will support all current Visual HDL formats.

Visual Elite's new state machine wizard enables designers to define the essential functional and geometric properties of a state machine in an intuitive, step-by-step process. They can define interfaces and all other declarations in an Excel-like spreadsheet. A comprehensive and fully customisable project manager enables users to manage all kinds of data related to a project. Global system settings and defaults for design-related issues are intuitive and easy to navigate using the new option manager.

Users can add, modify and remove menus and menu entries. New commands can be created via VEL (Visual HDL Extension Language) or Perl scripts. In addition, users can specify a bitmap image to be inserted for documentation purposes in the block diagram, state diagram, flowchart editors, and symbol and templates editors. Freestanding graphic elements can be included in the block diagram, state diagram or flowchart editors.

Innoveda is represented in South Africa by ASIC Design Services. For further information contact Kobus van Rooyen (011) 315 8316, kobus@asic.co.za