Mentor SoC design tool supports SPIRIT 1.0

Mentor Graphics announced that its Platform Express product, an XML-based rapid SoC design creation tool, now supports the SPIRIT 1.0 specification for intellectual property (ip) design re-use.

Released recently, SPIRIT 1.0 defines a standard XML data set to ease IP integration issues during the SoC design process.

As SoC designs grow larger and more sophisticated, the task of integrating complex IP blocks into a system becomes increasingly labor intensive and time-consuming, the company explained. The SPIRIT 1.0 standard enables IP providers to create an IP databook in XML, documenting features, data files and configurability options for IP. Platform Express uses the SPIRIT 1.0 XML data to automate the IP integration process, leaving designers with more time to evaluate the performance of the IP block, its behavior and performance in the system context, explore design alternatives, and focus on design features that differentiate the end product.

Platform Express is IP, bus and processor architecture, and design tool agnostic, enabling designers to create multi-processor designs with any mix of bus architectures and IP providers to add support for their proprietary buses, processors and design tools. According to the press release, the tool conducts all database processing functions at an XML level in an open and infinitely extensible way.

Additionally, Platform Express is accompanied by a wide range of generator functions to process both SPIRIT and the Platform Express XML information, generating many different representations of SoC designs. Standard generator functions include full Verilog and VHDL design creation; testbench creation; level-one diagnostics software to execute on the design; and HTML design documentation.

Designs created in the Platform Express tool are automatically configured to leverage most verification tools, including Mentor's ModelSim and Seamless products. Platform Express can be downloaded from the company's website. Availability of SPIRIT XML support is scheduled for Q1 2005.