CoWare Integrates SPW 5-XP with Texas Instruments' Code Composer Studio to Enable Early Verification of Complex Embedded DSP Software

SPW 5-XP for Windows Available for Evaluation Today at www.coware.com

HOUSTON, Texas, TI Developer Conference, February 15, 2005 *** CoWare Inc., a leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services, announced a new option for its SPW 5-XP digital signal processing (DSP) application solution for the Microsoft® Windows® operating system that enables early verification of complex embedded DSP designs. Developed in cooperation with Texas Instruments (TI), the new option allows design teams developing DSP applications to reuse their SPW 5-XP reference models for verification of embedded software for TI TMS320C6000 and C5000 DSP platforms developed using TI's Code Composer Studio (CCStudio) integrated development environment (IDE). SPW is the most comprehensive DSP application solution that bridges the gap from DSP algorithm exploration to implementation into hardware and software.

"We are pleased to work with one of the most recognized technology leaders in electronic system-level design to help ease DSP design for our customers," said Jennifer Skinner-Gray, WW DSP partner network manager, TI. "The integration between SPW 5-XP and CCStudio provides our catalog customers with greater tool choice, and our premier customers with integration into the market leading design flow centered around the SystemC language."

"CoWare appears to be serious about embedded software," said DSP analyst Will Strauss, Forward Concepts. "The new SPW and TI CCStudio integration emulates the success they are having with ConvergenSC and ARM support, combined with their LISATek technology for programmable accelerators. CoWare certainly bears watching in the advanced DSP design space."

SPW 5-XP Enables Early Verification of Complex Embedded DSP Designs The complexity of applications running on TI DSPs is steadily increasing, and although designers can alter TI DSP software after production, it is difficult for them to find bugs if the software is not running concurrently with a transparent testbench. Debugging prior to lab integration is becoming an integral part of the design flow to meet time-to-market requirements, and using physical prototypes is a very time consuming process. An SPW reference simulation offers an easier option. The link between SPW 5-XP and CCStudio ties the detailed reference design of the communications designer with the optimized software implementation of the embedded software engineer, helping achieve the requisite communications system performance and real-time and power consumption specifications.

Once a subsystem in SPW is identified for implementation on the TI processor, the application designer will provide the reference C-code for those blocks to the embedded software developer for optimization to the TI target. After the initial target code is created, the application designer can connect the SPW reference testbench surrounding the target subsystem to the TI CCStudio IDE processor model simulating the target code. With the easy to use, high performance SPW simulation driving TI CCStudio, the application designer or embedded software developer can debug/verify that the optimized embedded code performs functionally identically to the SPW reference model.

Availability

SPW 5-XP with TI CCStudio integration beta software will ship by April 15th. Interested customers can get pre-release access to the technology platform immediately. SPW 5-XP can be downloaded for evaluation and more information can be obtained from www.coware.com.

About CoWare

CoWare is a leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services. CoWare offers a comprehensive set of electronic system-level (ESL) tools that enable SoC developers to "differentiate by design" through the creation of system-IP including embedded processors, on-chip buses, and DSP algorithms; the architecture of optimized SoC platforms; and hardware/software co-design. The company's solutions are based on open industry standards including SystemC. CoWare's customers are major systems, semiconductor, and IP companies in the market where consumer electronics, computing, and communications converge. CoWare's corporate investors include ARM Ltd. [(LSE:ARM);(Nasdaq: ARMHY)], Cadence Design Systems (NYSE:CDN), STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), and Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE). CoWare is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has offices around the world. For more information about CoWare and its products and services, visit http://www.coware.com.

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ConvergenSC and LISATek are trademarks of CoWare, Inc. CoWare is a registered trademark of CoWare, Inc. in the United States. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Code Composer Studio is a trademark of Texas Instruments.