16th Feb, 09
Noida, India
CircuitSutra Technologies Pvt Ltd today announced it has entered into a partnership with GreenSocs Ltd, UK to deliver high quality SystemC based SoC modelling services to the semiconductor industry.

GreenSocs is a pioneer in the field of SystemC based SoC modelling. Mark Burton, Founder of GreenSocs was the chairman of the OSCI TLM-WG, and is the current chairman of the OCP-IP System level design working group. The contribution of GreenSocs in the various standards (SystemC TLM-2.0, and OCP-IP) is well known in the semiconductor industry worldwide.

CircuitSutra was started in November 2005, and it has established itself as the centre of excellence in SystemC based SoC modelling. CircuitSutra has an in-depth understanding of the various standards in this domain like OSCI’s TLM2.0, the STARC TL Guidelines, and the GreenSocs open source infrastructure for tool independent model development. CircuitSutra is providing SystemC modelling services to a worldwide customer base, who range from small fabless organisations to the top ten semiconductor companies.

CircuitSutra and GreenSocs have together provided SystemC modelling services to customers worldwide, and this model is proving very successful. The execution skills of CircuitSutra combined with technical project management and system architect skills of GreenSocs makes it an ideal partnership to execute complex projects with high quality. Both companies are willing to replicate this model for the other customers.

In the tough economic times, the investment in creating the SystemC based Transaction level models of their IP & SoC will be a wise strategic decision for the semiconductor companies, and will provide long term advantages. SystemC is a new standard which has the potential to bring disruptive changes in all the stages of SoC development: Embedded software development of SoC, Architectural exploration of SoC, and verification of SoC in short term, and even in raising the abstraction of chip design in long term. The virtual platforms created by CircuitSutra and GreenSocs with SystemC can be used for pre-silicon embedded software development, architectural exploration of SoCs or the verification of designs. So far SystemC has been in the research and evaluation phase, but it has crossed the initial hurdles now and has reached a stage where it is ready for widespread adoption in the industry.

“We are very well positioned to enable SoC companies in the fast adoption of SystemC. Our partnership with GreenSocs enhances our capability to execute bigger and more complex projects and provide the right value proposition to our customers”, stated Umesh Sisodia, CEO of CircuitSutra. “SystemC requires a very unique skill set which is a combination of two domains: Software development (C++ & Object oriented programming) and the understanding of SoC (architecture, design and verification). Apart from that modelling engineers also need to have the sound knowledge of the application domain to which the SoC is targeted and the use cases of SystemC models. All this makes the modelling of SoC a pretty complex job. CircuitSutra and GreenSocs together posses the right skills for SoC modelling.” ”

“In today’s economic climate, costs are under extreme pressure. With the combined skills (and geographic locations) of GreenSocs and CircuitSutra we are in a unique position to deliver a very high value within constrained budgets.” Stated Mark Burton, Founder of GreenSocs Ltd. “GreenSocs provides an Open Source infrastructure that significantly reduces model development and ownership costs. Using this, our customers are free to choose any ESL tool environment, and provide the same advantage to their customers. Our understanding of the use case scenarios for models helps our customers identify exactly what model technologies they should be deploying, and further reduces wasted effort. Together, the in-depth understanding of SoC modelling and the efficient means of development offer the perfect package for our customers.”

About GreenSocs
The GreenSocs mission is to encourage SystemC to be used by designers. It will do this by engineering SystemC infrastructure to compliment the capabilities developed by OSCI and commercial EDA providers, promoting and utilising academic research. The aim is to extend the use and applicability of SystemC, by co-ordinating and promoting collaboratively developed models, methods and utilities, prioritised by designers needs.
GreenSocs runs a Source Forge project called the GreenSocs project. Its aims are to develop SystemC infrastructure, basic IP, patches and add on library code for eventual standardisation. For more information, see www.greensocs.com

About CircuitSutra
CircuitSutra Technologies Pvt Ltd is an emerging company based in India, with an aim to emerge as the world leader in software services to the semiconductor industry. More and more contents of a SoC are becoming software, more and more chip design steps are becoming like C / C++ programming, CircuitSutra has an important role to play in the future of semiconductor industry. With current focus on SoC Modelling and Embedded semiconductor software services, CircuitSutra plans to expand into outsourced EDA tool development. CircuitSutra is the first company in India to get seed funding from JSSATE, Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park. CircuitSutra is the recipient of ISBA Entrepreneurship award 2008. For more information, see www.circuitsutra.com