CoWare, which specializes in platform-driven electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services, has announced its new Virtual Platform product family.

CoWare Virtual Platform product family delivers new tools and technologies that support the creation, distribution, and use of virtual hardware platforms for device software development and validation. Virtual hardware platforms are models of the device hardware and the environment they evolve in, and are suitable for the development and validation of an entire device software stack up to the application level, the company says. They also enable electronics companies to engage more effectively with their customers and ecosystem partners. The solution is integrated with and supports the CoWare platform-driven ESL strategy.

Traditional software development and validation solutions have either been non-representative of the device hardware, too slow, available too late, or have not provided enough hardware controllability and observability, CoWare says. Virtual hardware platforms provide fast execution speed, scalability, early availability, unprecedented hardware controllability, observability, determinism, and easy distribution.

CoWare Virtual Platform Product Family Includes:

· CoWare Virtual Platform Designer: the first virtual hardware platform creation environment based on SystemC includes a graphical modeling and high performance SystemC environment, an Eclipse-based SystemC IDE, and automated virtual platform software package generation.

· CoWare Virtual Platform: the self-contained, distributable virtual platform software package generated by the CoWare Virtual Platform Designer, includes the executable virtual platform model, the software tools to leverage the unique capability of the virtual platform, and the scripting and application programming interface to integrate the virtual platform in the software development and validation environment.

"Customer engagements and technology expertise have enabled us to deliver an optimized and integrated platform-driven ESL design solution that meets the requirement of the device software development market," said Marc Serughetti, director of marketing, CoWare. "Our new solution provides the infrastructure required so that electronic companies can focus on their core expertise in order to design and deliver differentiated products to their target markets in a more reliable and efficient manner."