Complete development environment for ARM Premium Mobile IP Suite
06-02-2015 |
Cadence
|
Design & Manufacture
Cadence Design Systems has announced availability of a complete
system-on-chip (SoC) development environment supporting the new ARM premium
mobile IP suite that incorporates the latest ARM Cortex-A72 processor, ARM
Mali-T880 GPU and ARM CoreLink CCI-500 Cache Coherent Interconnect solution.
Available is a Cadence reference flow for the ARM Cortex-A72 processor that
supports advanced manufacturing processes including TSMC 16-nanometer FinFET
Plus. Also available with the Cadence flow is performance-leading ARM
Artisan physical IP and ARM POPT IP for the ARM Cortex-A72 processor and ARM
Mali-T860 and T880 GPUs, enabling designers to meet aggressive processor
performance and power goals.
The Cadence development environment includes digital and system-to-silicon
verification tools and IP that support the ARM premium mobile IP suite,
speeding time to market for complex, high-end mobile designs.
In support of this processor and the ARM premium mobile IP suite, Cadence
collaborated with ARM to:
1 - Target optimal PPA for the premium mobile market by defining ideal
reference flows from RTL synthesis to final signoff. The flow is proven by
internal usage at ARM and includes Encounter Digital Implementation System,
Encounter RTL Compiler, multiple Encounter Conformal products, Tempus Timing
Signoff Solution, Quantus QRC Extraction Solution, Voltus IC Power Integrity
Solution, and Physical Verification System.
2 - Integrate Cadence Palladium XP Series and ARM Cortex-A72 Fast Models to
provide 50X faster OS boot-up and 10X speed-up, as compared with the
previous emulation-only solution, in hardware-software co-development,
synchronized cycle-accurate hardware/software debug support and Dynamic
Power Analysis (DPA) to optimize the balance between power consumption and
expected performance using realistic software loads.
3 - Deliver an integration with Cadence Interconnect Workbench and ARM
CoreLink CCI-500 that matches automatically generated testbenches to the ARM
IP's many possible configurations. These testbenches are used to perform
cycle-accurate performance analysis of the interconnect sub-system,
optimizing device performance and speeding time to market.
"The ARM Cortex-A72 processor sets a new standard for delivering a premium
mobile experience and is expected to be the highest performing CPU
technology for mobile SoCs," said Noel Hurley, general manager, CPU group,
ARM. "Our continued collaboration with Cadence helps our mutual customers
differentiate themselves and deliver innovative, industry-leading solutions
for mobile devices."
Dr. Chi-Ping Hsu, senior vice president and chief strategy officer for EDA
at Cadence, said: "We collaborated closely with ARM to co-optimize our
advanced digital implementation and signoff solutions, system-to-silicon
verification tools and IPs with the ARM Cortex-A72 processor, and we're
already seeing excellent results with early high-end mobile customers. In
addition, we worked together to ensure that the Cadence flow allows
customers to integrate the ARM Mali-T880 GPU and ARM CoreLink CCI-500 to
achieve optimal results at advanced process nodes. The Cadence
system-on-chip (SoC) development environment supporting the new ARM premium
mobile IP suite has been thoroughly tested so that designers can adopt these
new technologies with confidence."