IMEC has already significantly contributed indirectly and directly to the SystemC standard.

CoWare, Inc., founded with technology originally developed at IMEC and a founding member of OSCI, contributed hardware/software modeling to the SystemC language and co-developed the SystemC reference implementation.

Over the past half year, IMEC has played a major role in defining the requirements for SystemC 3.0 within the OSCI language working group. SystemC 3.0 will provide capabilities for describing hardware and software tasks, flexible hardware/software partitioning, and hardware/software simulation of the overall system whereby the software tasks run on a simulated RTOS (real-time operating system).

IMEC’s proprietary OCAPI-xl design environment features dynamic behavior and multi-threading and has an automatic code generator from C to synthesizable register-transfer languages (RTLs) for hardware and to C processes on OS for software. However, current RTLs do not support multi-threading and dynamic behavior of systems consisting of both hardware and software. SystemC 3.0 will bridge this gap.

“By joining OSCI, we are convinced that we will be able to leverage our proprietary high-level automatic code generator,” said Rudy Lauwereins, vice president design technology for integrated information and communication systems at IMEC. “In the future our design methodologies will comply with the international standard SystemC.”

Henk Corporaal, chief scientist of IMEC’s division on design technology for integrated information and communication systems, will represent IMEC within OSCI.

About OCAPI-xl design methodology

IMEC's proprietary OCAPI-xl design methodology is well suited for the development of implementation-independent system models in C++. It allows high-level modeling and offers a path of gradual refinements towards implementation. Performance exploration throughout the design flow allows easy and fast exploration of the hardware/software partitioning. An automatic code generation step writes out register transfer HDL that guarantees the same constraints for both functionality and timing as the C++ system model.

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Notes to editors

About IMEC

IMEC was founded in 1984 and today is Europe’s largest independent research center in the field of microelectronics, nanotechnology, enabling design methods and technologies for ICT systems. IMEC's activities concentrate on the design technology for integrated information and communication systems; silicon process technology; silicon technology and device integration; nanotechnology, microsystems, components and packaging; solar cells; and advanced training in microelectronics. IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has a staff of more than 1200 people including over 350 industrial residents and guest researchers. IMEC has a 0.13µm 200mm pilot line and is ISO9001 certified. Its revenue of more than 120Meuro is derived from agreements and contracts with the Flemish government and companies, the EC, MEDEA+, the European Space Agency, equipment and material suppliers, and semiconductor and system-oriented companies worldwide. News from IMEC is located at www.imec.be.

For more information

Katrien Marent                                                                       

Corporate Communication Manager                            

IMEC                                                                         

Phone: +32 16 28 18 80   Fax: +32 16 28 16 37                                    

Email: Katrien.Marent@imec.be