Yamaha Standardizes on Synopsys' Processor Designer after Cutting DSP Development Time in Half
January 25, 2012 at 09:01 am EST
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Synopsys Inc. announced that Yamaha has adopted the Synopsys Processor Designer(TM) tool for the development of its custom-designed digital signal processing (DSP) devices. Using the Processor Designer tool to automate the design and implementation of its XMP-1 DSP, Yamaha doubled the number of sound channels for their high definition sound generator device and taped out six months, or 50%, earlier compared to their previous generation device. The design team cited the Processor Designer tool's complete flow, including the generation of an assembler, linker, C-Compiler and instruction-set simulator (ISS), easy-to-use processor description language and optimized RTL output as the differentiating reasons for choosing the tool. Yamaha's design team found the LISA processor description language of the Synopsys Processor Designer tool easy to use, helping reduce development time by more than 50% versus traditional methods. In addition to doubling the number of sound channels in the XMP-1, Yamaha designers were able to reduce the device's silicon size by 20%. The added flexibility of a software-based solution enabled the design team to add new algorithms after initial design completion without compromising quality or extending the design schedule. Processor Designer's generated C-Compiler was a key benefit as well. Given the small size of the project's engineering team and limited schedule, manually developing a C-Compiler would have been nearly impossible. Processor Designer accelerates the design of both application-specific processors (ASIPs) and programmable accelerators through automated software development tools (assembler, linker, debugger, C-compiler), RTL and instruction set simulator (ISS) generation from a single, high-level specification. ASIPs and programmable accelerators are increasingly essential to support the convergence of multiple functionalities on a single system-on-chip (SoC). This makes them ideal for use in a wide variety of applications including video, audio, security, networking, baseband, control and industrial automation applications.
Synopsys Inc. specializes in the development and marketing of software programs aimed mainly at manufacturers of semi-conductors, computers and electronic equipment. Net sales break down by activity as follows:
- sale of software and hardware (82.4%): sale of software for the automation of integrated circuit design, pre-designed circuits for semiconductors, software and hardware for the validation of electronic systems, etc.;
- provision of services (17.6%): consulting, maintenance and technical assistance services in the areas of software security, quality and compliance.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (47.7%), China (15.2%), Korea (10.9%), Europe (10.2%) and other (16%).