Adelante Technologies licenses Mentor Graphics' embedded technology

Adelante Technologies licences Mentor Graphics' embedded technology to offer Unique Multi-core software solution

Mentor Graphics' XRAY debugger automatically adapts to any Adelante Saturn DSP Core configuration

JUNE 10, 2002, New Orleans, La. Design Automation Conference,– Adelante Technologies, a leading developer of open, system-on-chip (SoC) digital
signal processing solutions for the wireless, consumer infotainment and networking markets, announced today that it will offer unique solutions to debug multi-core systems (multi-DSP and DSP+RISC) incorporating Adelante's
high performance Saturn DSP core and application specific co-processors with RISC processors and via its proprietary XRAY® debugger suite from Mentor Graphics.

Mentor Graphics launched its Embedded Technology Adoption Program in 2001 to provide its best-in-class embedded technology to companies requiring a complete tools solution. As a member of ETAP, Adelante can now provide its customers and partners access to both its high performance DSP cores and co-processors with Mentor Graphics® XRAY embedded technology platform.

As part of its Atmosphere Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Adelante will license Mentor Graphics' XRAY Debugger technology to provide a best-in-class debug solution to customers developing complex multi-core System-on-Chip (SoC) embedded solutions. The integration of XRAY into the Atmosphere IDE will provide engineers with both homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core debugging capability and provide a common user interface for all Adelante DSP cores and application specific co-processors. This powerful solution will support all facets of the embedded software development lifecycle including instruction set simulation, co-verification and real target debug.

Highly optimized, fixed-point DSP designs frequently use multiple, non-standard word-widths (13-bits, 27-bits, etc.) to achieve floating-point performance on a small amount of silicon. While many debuggers limit the word-width to 16- or 32-bits, XRAY is designed specifically to handle any word-width and any combination of word-widths. Another key advantage for customers is XRAY's ability to enable embedded system developers to quickly build applications optimized around any Adelante DSP core for their SoC designs. Each design is automatically adapted to each unique Adelante core with XRAY's configurable interface from code development to debug. The extended support in XRAY for the DSP-C programming language is extremely important when designing and debugging highly optimized C-based solutions.

"This collaboration between Adelante and Mentor Graphics is key for developers in the high-volume consumer electronics industry - particularly in the areas of infotainment and multimedia as well as next-generation wireless devices. It enables systems designers to optimize their system level trade-offs and dramatically improve accuracy and time to market," said Karsten Popp, Adelante's CEO. "Multi-core debugging can be a major bottleneck in complex systems designs. Adelante and Mentor Graphics' XRAY Debugger solution dramatically speeds-up the integration of Adelante's DSP solutions into customer solutions."

"This solution strongly reinforces Mentor Graphics' commitment to provide embedded software technology to a leader in the field of open embedded DSPs and to make it readily available and integrated into companies' architectures and environments," said Neil Henderson, general manager at Mentor Graphics' Embedded Systems Division. "The XRAY Debugger is closely integrated with Adelante's DSP architecture, and completes the total solution for Adelante's customers."

Adelante and Mentor Graphics also have formed a partnership that enables Mentor Graphics to broaden the scope of its Platform Express™ SoC design kit to include SoC embedded digital signal processing (DSP). Platform Express offers an open development platform that enables multi-core SoC design and verification of hardware and software. This represents a major step forward in increasing the speed of development for SoC-based designs. Platform Express simultaneously generates a custom verification environment to verify interfaces in the portion of the design surrounding the embedded processor and its attached peripherals. By automating design creation and verification steps, the solution shaves months off product development cycles and enables designers to focus on product differentiators.