ST adopts Mentor Graphics Veloce emulation platform

WILSONVILLE, USA: Mentor Graphics Corp. announced that STMicroelectronics’ Home Entertainment and Display group (HED), a leader in the provision of digital consumer applications, has adopted the Veloce platform for the system-level validation of its next-generation of digital Systems-on-Chip (SoC) for High-Definition (HD) Set-Top-Box (STB) applications.

STMicroelectronics (ST) chose the Veloce platform due to its high performance, state-of-the-art Testbench XPress (TBX) transaction-based environment, and extensive portfolio of iSolve vertical market solutions for the validation of digital standards associated with HDTV and STB.

“Meeting time-to-market goals for our digital consumer products requires advanced solutions that ensure the quality and integrity of our next-generation SoCs,” said Thierry Bauchon, R&D Director, Home Entertainment & Displays, STMicroelectronics.

“iSolve solutions have helped us anticipate and perform significant advances in the validation of our digital set-top-box chips with its associated software, bringing forward considerably more of the system-level validation of our designs during the pre-silicon phase.

“In particular, during the software validation process, we could boot the full system using a real Ethernet connection, and decode video frames that we then transmitted over HDMI and analyzed to ensure compliance with the standard, allowing us to better meet our goals and achieve robust system validation.”

The Veloce platform is the industry’s fastest dual-mode accelerator/emulator available, providing MHz performance for both transaction-based verification and traditional in-circuit emulation (ICE). With an extensive portfolio of vertical market solutions, the Veloce platform is the platform of choice for multimedia, networking, wireless, and embedded systems applications.

“Mentor has demonstrated for several years the leadership we have attained in the accelerated verification of multimedia-based applications with our Veloce platform and iSolve solutions,” said Eric Selosse, Mentor Emulation Division vice president and general manager.

“Additionally, we have gained the premier position in delivering high-speed, transaction-based methodologies to a wide user base with our flagship product TBX. It is especially rewarding to see ST’s successful use of our advanced technologies in both of these areas, and we look forward to supporting ST on future projects with Veloce.”