Dr. Dobb's | MathWorks Links Tool to Cadence

MathWorks Links Tool to Cadence

Chip designers will have an easier time verifying their hardware designs with Link for Cadence Incisive from The MathWorks Inc. This add-on product for the Matlab language will verify HDL implementations based on Matlab or Simulink models. The co-simulation interface brings Matlab and Simulink into the Incisive platform by providing a bidirectional link between hardware designers using the MathWorks programs and verification teams using the Incisive platform of Cadence Design Systems Inc.

October 30, 2006
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/embedded-systems/mathworks-links-tool-to-cadence/193500210

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Chip designers will have an easier time verifying their hardware designs with Link for Cadence Incisive from The MathWorks Inc. This add-on product for the Matlab language will verify HDL implementations based on Matlab or Simulink models. The co-simulation interface brings Matlab and Simulink into the Incisive platform by providing a bidirectional link between hardware designers using the MathWorks programs and verification teams using the Incisive platform of Cadence Design Systems Inc.

Link for Cadence Incisive will help designers eliminate the errors that crop up in manually written code, and spot flaws before they create a problem at the system level, The MathWorks said.

The bidirectional interface provides a bridge between the systems engineers and algorithm developers who are MathWorks' standard customers and the verification specialists who use Cadence's Incisive platform to design system-on-chip or ASIC devices, said Colin Warwick, product manager of signal processing and communications for MathWorks. "One is building the right product, and the other is building the product right. This makes their communication a lot smoother and error-free."

Some customers in the past developed homegrown solutions to bridge the traditional gap between the two teams. "What this does is provide a standard way for hardware designers to make sure their component is working in context with the overall system," said Ken Karnofsky, MathWorks' marketing director of signal processing and communications. "It gives an efficient way for hardware designers to see that their design is working correctly."

Cadence's Incisive is an open, multilanguage platform. Companies using Link for Cadence Incisive will be able to set up an efficient environment for co-simulation, component modeling and analysis that can then be used to develop software testbenches in Matlab or Simulink, include HDL models in systems models developed in Simulink, generate functional vectors for test programs and verify HDL simulations in Matlab and Simulink.

Client/server stuff
When Link for Incisive is used with Matlab, Matlab is the server and Incisive the client. Designers can connect an Incisive simulator to multiple Matlab components or testbenches running on one or more Matlab servers. A Matlab server can interface to multiple HDL entities and Incisive simulators.

When the Matlab add-on is used with Simulink, Simulink is the client and Incisive is the server. A Simulink model with one or more co-simulation blocks can be connected to one or more Incisive simulators. Using Simulink and related block sets, teams can create system-level representations of signal-processing or communications systems, then incorporate HDL components into their design. They can also replace existing subsystems with HDL blocks to create software testbenches to validate their HDL implementation. Link for Incisive can also generate value-change dump files, MathWorks said.

Working with the latest edition of Matlab, Link for Cadence Incisive is available now for Windows, Unix and Linux platforms.