Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) Initiative for Multi-Core Software Development Releases High Performance Models of ARM Processors

OVP Becomes Founding Member of Synopsys System-Level Catalyst Program
THAME, England--(Business Wire)--
The Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) initiative (www.OVPworld.org), founded by
Imperas and now boasting more than 1,500 individuals from the embedded systems
community registered on the website, has released new models of ARM processor
cores. These models work with the OVP simulator, OVPsim, and have exceptionally
fast performance of hundreds of millions of instructions per second (MIPS).
Additionally, OVP became a founding member of the Synopsys System-Level Catalyst
Program. OVP technology provides solutions to the problems embedded software
developers incur when modeling the multi-processor system on chip (MPSoC) that
hosts their software.

The ARM models released are for the v4 and v5 instruction sets from ARM,
supporting 13 processor cores across the ARM7, ARM9 and ARM10 families of
processor cores. This includes the ARM926E processor core, the most popular core
developed by ARM. These models are instruction accurate, typically enabling
simulation speeds of hundreds of MIPS, thus meeting the requirements of
application and firmware engineers for their development environments. In
addition to working in OVP virtual platforms, the models include SystemC/TLM-2.0
interfaces, enabling native operation in SystemC environments.

"In the automotive electronics industry we always need to do more testing of our
embedded systems software. Finding that the simulation performance of the
Imperas/OVP ARM model was over 50 times faster than our previous solution opens
up new possibilities for us in software testing, and enables us to increase our
test coverage and product reliability," said Urban Forssell, CEO of Nira
Dynamics AB, a subsidiary of Audi Electronics Venture GmbH.

As the complexity of software running on MPSoCs increases, the need for a cost
effective virtualized software development environment has become critical.
"Open Virtual Platforms provides needed modeling and simulation tools for next
generation embedded systems software development," stated Simon Davidmann,
president and CEO, Imperas and founding director of the OVP initiative. "The
models of the ARM processor cores give OVP users needed models. Also, working
with Synopsys as a founding member of the System-Level Catalyst Program ensures
interoperability with the popular Synopsys system-level tools, the DesignWare
System-Level Library of models, and virtual platforms using the Innovator
development environment."

"The goals of the Synopsys System-Level Catalyst Program are to increase model
availability and tool interoperability with both the Synopsys Innovator virtual
platform development environment and the DesignWare System-Level Library of
TLM-2.0 models, enabling developers to do more work at the system level," said
Frank Schirrmeister, product marketing director for the Solutions Group at
Synopsys. "Open Virtual Platforms` models support of TLM-2.0 further confirms
the quality of OSCI`s transaction-level APIs and provides users with more model
options, strengthening the overall system-level ecosystem."

Gert-Jan Tromp, senior consultant at Dizain-Sync B.V., said that "We were
excited to have achieved over 500 MIPS performance for an ARM 7 virtual platform
benchmark using OVPsim. We were similarly excited at how easy it was to use OVP
processor models in a TLM-2.0 virtual platform."

In addition to making the models for ARM processors available as free and open
source, OVP offers free, open source example virtual platforms for OVP users to
download from the OVP website. These example platforms include bare metal
applications, the Atmel AT91SAM7 product with the ARM7TDMI core running the
uClinux operating system, and the ARM IntegratorCP platform with the ARM926EJ-S
core, which boots the Linux operating system in less than 10 seconds. "Key tasks
for embedded software developers include porting operating systems and drivers
to new platforms, and developing new applications to run on the SoCs," commented
Davidmann. "Fast simulation and easy development of platforms is necessary for
these complex systems."

Open Virtual Platforms (www.OVPworld.org)

OVP includes the OVPsim simulator, libraries of models and APIs for developing
new models. OVPsim executes platforms, including multicore platforms, at
hundreds of millions of instructions per second, providing the speed that
software developers require for simulation of embedded systems. Model libraries
include everything from individual processor models (from ARC, ARM, MIPS and
OpenCores) and component models to more complex platforms, such as ARM
IntegratorCP and MIPS Malta development boards for running Linux. OVP APIs
enable the community to develop models of processors, behavioral components and
peripherals, and to connect these together into virtual platforms that run the
final target system software binaries unchanged.

About the OVP Initiative (www.OVPworld.org)

The OVP initiative was founded with a donation by Imperas of approximately $4
million of simulation infrastructure. The goal of organization is to help the
industry to build an effective multi-core development infrastructure through the
use and adoption of open virtual platform technology. The website serves as a
portal for OVP members covering details about the technology, providing a
discussion forum for the community, and links to download each component. The
technology has the support of electronic design automation (EDA) companies, end
users and intellectual property (IP) providers. Detailed quotations regarding
OVP are available from http://www.ovpworld.org/newsblog/?p=42.

About Imperas (www.imperas.com)

Imperas provides methodologies, technologies and products to enable the
efficient and effective verification of software functionality and software
performance for embedded systems. Its products enable software functional
verification, performance profiling, and analysis for embedded software
operating on multiprocessor MPSoCs. With an engineering base in the United
Kingdom, Imperas distributes its products to customers worldwide. For more
information, visit www.imperas.com.

Imperas acknowledge trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations
for their respective products and services. Synopsys and DesignWare are
registered trademarks of Synopsys, Inc.

Imperas
Larry Lapides, 925-519-1234
Vice President of Sales
larryl@imperas.com
http://www.imperas.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009