( SNUG 01 Item 26 ) -------------------------------------------- [ 3/28/01 ]
Subject: Synopsys "Eagle-i" -- Lost In The Wilderness
NOT INTERESTED: With all this talk of C/C++ based design, you'd think that
the olde HW/SW co-design tools would be an indication of what the C future
will bring. They're C-based HW design tools, right? Well, if Eagle-i is
any indication, C-based design doesn't look too cheery. They re-org-ed in
Synopsys and just can't get that much customer interest -- and they've been
doing the C game *years* before these "new" C initiatives.
"We got an eval copy of Eagle-i in our company. Eagle-i ran so slow,
it was useless for our software guys. They didn't like it at all.
Now, in our design process we write Verilog. When our SW guys need
what we're working on for their simulations, we tranlate it over
to C, bottom up. SystemC works, but it's ugly. It's a solution in
search of a problem we don't have. We'd rather do our hardware
design in Verilog and then translate it to C at the last minute when
it's needed by the SW guys. Verilog is much more graceful for
hardware design. Translating it to C is easy.
I don't think HW/SW co-design is a driving force in design today.
HW/SW co-design's approach is to blurr the line between what's
going to be done in HW and what's going to be done in SW. In every
situation I've seen, everyone knows where the SW ends and the HW
begins. System designers clear know how to partition HW and SW
from the very beginning of their projects. You don't need HW/SW
co-design tools like Eagle-i."
- Martin Gravenstein of TDK Semiconductor Corp.
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