ARM snaps up Carbon model IP for prototyping

ARM has moved back into system-level modelling with the decision to buy the tools and models developed by Carbon Design Systems and will use them to provide modelling support for its processor cores. Although tagged as an asset purchase by the company, ARM said Carbon’s staff will also transfer over.

“Early stage virtual prototyping of complex SoCs is now mandatory for leading silicon vendors, as demonstrated by the success of ARM Fast Models,” said Hobson Bullman, general manager, development solutions group, ARM. “The integration of Carbon’s virtual prototyping products into the ARM portfolio will deliver access to ARM IP earlier in the design cycle. This builds on the current industry leading solutions to enable further design optimization, time-to-market and cost-efficiency gains for our partners.”

Carbon created a comprehensive library of ARM processor and system models that can be extended to create cycle-accurate virtual prototypes of SoCs. In future, the Carbon products will be marketed as ARM Cycle Models and will remain available from ARM IP Exchange. ARM will also continue to offer Carbon’s tools for model generation and SoC analysis.