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Virtutech Boasts Virtualized Software Development Leadership

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Virtutech,  provider of virtualized software development (VSD) solutions, today announced new metrics that solidify the company’s position as the VSD platform vendor of choice for electronic systems developers.

Virtutech claims it is experiencing a growing demand for its Simics platform across all dimensions of the marketplace with:

  • More than 10,000 Simics end users based on licenses issued
  • More than 100 processors and virtual platforms deployed
  • More than 1,000 devices modeled on Simics and immediately available in the platform model repository
  • Simics has become the de facto commercial standard for enablement and development on Power Architecture;
  • More than 30 Fortune 500 companies rely on Virtutech.

Virtutech recently announced version 4.0 of its flagship Simics development platform, which debuted Simics Accelerator. Simics Accelerator is designed specifically to boost performance and scalability of large-scale simulations, including features such as memory page sharing and multi-threading support, which leverages the multi-core aspects of their host environment.

Early in June, Virtutech announced the fastest mixed level of modeling simulation supporting SystemC as well as C-based models with its Simics SystemC Bridge. This was followed shortly thereafter by Virtutech and Freescale’s joint announcement of a Hybrid Simulation capability to solve the critical need performance analysis and optimization of the system-on-chip (SoC) model when developing for complex multicore processors.

Virtutech appointed David Pefley as the company’s first chief financial officer. Pefley has more than 20 years experience in financial management, most recently as senior vice president, CFO and board member of Yield Dynamics where he led the company to a successful acquisition. He has served in various financial management positions, including corporate controller at KLA-Tencor Corp for 10 years.

Virtutech

VirtualLogix Hooks Up With Freescale Semiconductor To Secure Mobile Commerce

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VirtualLogix today announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Freescale Semiconductor to create a trusted environment for mobile devices and other terminals that can be used in particular to ensure security of mobile commerce (m-commerce) transactions.

VirtualLogix VLX for Mobile Handsets virtualization technology will be incorporated into the Freescale Semiconductor i.MX31 multimedia applications processor to create an isolated Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), independent of the main application open operating system (open OS), which protects mobile devices from m-commerce security threats.

By adding VLX realtime virtualization on the i.MX31 applications processor, the open OS is securely isolated from a closed TEE where m-commerce transactions safely occur on the mobile phone or device. These measures protect against m-commerce security threats such as keystroke logging and phishing attacks.

VirtualLogix’ VLX for Network Infrastructure Now Available for Power Architectures

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VirtualLogix today announced that its VLX for Network Infrastructure is now available for Power Architecture based processors. Using VLX virtualization software, multiple operating systems may run simultaneously on shared hardware, “enabling networking and telecommunication equipment manufacturers to inject new functionalities into existing product lines and extend product lifecycles – while slicing costs by consolidating existing products into a multifunction system”.

VirtualLogix

According to the company, VLX for Network Infrastructure, supporting Power Architecture, speeds the adoption of rich open source software by combining Linux with real-time operating systems on shared hardware without compromising the system’s deterministic realtime behavior.

“This seamless integration is due to the advanced capabilities of VLX that allow multiple guest operating systems to run simultaneously in a number of different configurations based on performance and security criteria. As a result, users can extend the lifetime of existing designs by adding extra partitions to run upgraded or new features and consolidate functionality. By simplifying the hardware design, organizations reduce bill-of-materials and development costs, and reduce power consumption.”

New VLX for Network Infrastructure, supporting Power Architecture, features include:

  • Real-Time Virtualization – allows developers to run a combination of guest operating systems including Linux and a customer’s choice of real-time OS while keeping the real-time performance characteristics of their overall system.
  • Consolidation of hardware platforms – developers can consolidate Linux and mission-critical environments onto a single hardware platform, reducing system complexity and product bill-of-material costs.
  • Introduces support for Freescale’s popular PowerQUICC processors – includes support for the Integrated Communications and Host Processors from Freescale as well as the 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors from IBM.

[Source: VMblog]

The Gap Between Hardware and Software

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Interesting read over at EE Times Asia, titled “IC industry addresses multicore, programming software gap“.

An excerpt:

“The semiconductor industry is starting to address what’s being called a software gap between a rising tide of multicore processors and a lack of parallel programming tools and techniques to make use of them.

The gap came into stark focus in the embedded world at the Multicore Expo, where chipmakers Freescale Semiconductor, Intel Corp., MIPS and a handful of silicon startups sketched out directions for their multicore products. Others warned that the industry has its work cut out for it delivering the software that will harness the next-generation chips.”

“There is a major gap between the hardware and the software,” said Eric Heikkila, director of embedded hardware research at Venture Development Corp. (VDC).

About 55 % of embedded system developers surveyed by VDC said they are using or will use multicore processors in the next 12 months. That fact is fueling the company’s projections that the market for embedded multicore processors will grow from about $372 million in 2007 to $2.47 billion in 2011.

In the PC market, the figures are even more dramatic. About 40 % of all processors Intel shipped in 2007 used multiple cores, but that will rise to 95 % in 2011, said Doug Davis, general manager of Intel’s embedded group.

But on the software side, vendors reported that only about 6 % of their tools were ready for parallel chips in 2007, a figure that will only rise to 40 % in 2011, VDC said. As much as 85 % of all embedded programming is now done in C or C++, languages that are “difficult to optimize for multicore,” said Heikkila.

Standardization

The Multicore Association announced at the Multicore Expo it has completed work on an applications programming interface for communications between cores, and is now working to define a standard for embedded virtualization.

“The ultimate goal of every computer scientist is to create a new language, but my personal view is we should not do it this time around,” said Wen-mei Hwu, a veteran researcher in parallel programming and professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, referring to a flowering of languages developed for big parallel computers two decades ago, many of which never gained traction. I believe there will be new language constructs in C/C++ to support some of the new frameworks people will develop, but even these constructs, if we are not careful, will not be widely adopted,” Hwu said. “Ultimately, I think we will make a small amount of extensions to C, but I think it’s too early.”

On-chip fabric

For their part, Freescale and Intel sketched out design trends they see on the horizon for their multicore chips.

“Freescale is now sampling the first dual-core versions of its PowerQuicc processors, aimed at telecom OEMs. The chips are part of a family that will eventually scale to 32-core devices”, said Dan Cronin, VP of R&D for Freescale’s networking division.

The processors will use a new on-chip interconnect fabric. They will also embed in hardware a hypervisor, a kind of low-level scheduling unit, co-developed with IBM according to specs set in the Power.org group. “Freescale will release an open source reference design for companies that want to build virtualization software that taps into the hypervisor”, Cronin said.

[Source: VMBlog]