ARM acquisition enables cycle-accurate virtual prototyping

This combination of assets and expertise will significantly enhance ARM’s capability in SoC architectural exploration, system analysis and software bring-up. It will also enable earlier availability of cycle-accurate models for future ARM processors and ARM-based systems. The acquisition terms have not been disclosed.

Hobson Bullman, General Manager, Development Solutions Group, ARM, commented: "Early stage virtual prototyping of complex SoCs is now mandatory for leading silicon vendors, as demonstrated by the success of ARM Fast Models. The integration of Carbon’s virtual prototyping products into the ARM portfolio will deliver access to ARM IP earlier in the design cycle. This builds on the current industry leading solutions to enable further design optimisation, time-to-market and cost-efficiency gains for our partners.”

Carbon has created a comprehensive library of ARM processor and system models that can be extended easily to create cycle-accurate virtual prototypes of any new ARM-based SoC. The technology relies on RTL compilation, to ensure perfect functional and cycle accuracy. This is essential when evaluating target benchmark performance in the earliest stages of SoC design.

In future, Carbon products will be marketed as ARM Cycle Models and will remain available from ARM IP Exchange. ARM will also continue to offer Carbon’s solutions for model generation and SoC analysis.