The semiconductor chip design is all about a series of modeling, architecting and software programming to wire few complex function blocks such as processor, memory-interface which is nothing but 10s of millions of logic gates and is nothing but 100s of millions of MOSFETs.
Now 70% of semiconductor chip design business is said to be software, the process flow and automation is the core of the design and the trend. But the challenge today is growing design complexity and cost. SoC class semiconductor device require a investment of close to 100 million US$s. Much of the budget goes towards VLSI software expertise and the costly EDA tools. Sensing some market opportunity here, the three Bangalore, India based semiconductor chip designers Soumen Basak, Arijit Dutta, and Shamik Datta(embedded software expert), all X-Freescale employees braved to start a company to help VLSI engineers to design semiconductor chips easier and within low budget by leveraging open-source software. Their firm DSipher Design Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is offering two products for now namely IPi Edu for colleges, IPi Lite for professionals. Both IPi Edu and IPi Lite are OS independent and web-based are part of wider platform called Ipintentio.
IPi Edu facilitates integrated course content delivery, laboratory assignment and evaluation, and project execution. EDA software for SoC design can be integrated within the platform in a way that minimizes dependence on expertise in such software, making it easy to grasp design concepts.
IPi Lite offers a design platform with open source Verilog simulator and a Co-simulation methodology that allows software simulation with the designed IP plugged into a reference board software model. IPi Lite can be used to develop a chip prototype.
IPi Lite is available online, completely free of charge. DSipher Design also provides complementary services towards extending the prototype to production.
To explore further visit DSipher Design's website http://www.dsipherdesign.com
Regards,
B M S
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