Si2’s OpenAccess Coalition announces Extensions Steering Group

AUSTIN, USA: Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) has announced that the Extensions Steering Group (ESG) has been formed by the OpenAccess Coalition. The ESG has elected a slate of officers and has issued a public Request for Technology (RFT).

This group is chartered to increase the pace of adding OpenAccess functionality without affecting the consistency and stability of the core API standard and its associated Reference Implementation.

The ESG will look at ways to extend OpenAccess for the benefit of silicon foundries, EDA suppliers, IP providers, and end users. The ESG is responsible for reviewing and approving new features and capabilities for the OpenAccess Standard API which are not part of the regular development process. This will allow for more flexible development in the OpenAccess environment to meet ever changing market requirements.

A Request for Technology has been issued seeking technical donations. These Extensions may include new conventions or use models, additional semantics to existing schema, or extensions to the schema with new object types that are approved by members of the ESG.

The ESG elected Steve Potter of Altera as Chair and Scott Chase of Synopsys as Vice-Chair.

“This community effort ensures that OpenAccess will continue to evolve to meet the needs of its members, as well as the entire industry, without forking into conflicting versions,” says Sumit DasGupta, senior VP of Engineering for Si2.

“The ESG has gotten off to a strong start with the establishment of the OpenAccess Scripting Working Group, which is developing interfaces between the OpenAccess C++ API and the 4 most popular open scripting languages - Perl, Python, Ruby and Tcl. Scripting languages on OpenAccess enable more agile software development than compiled languages such as C and C++. Other scripting languages such as C# are also being considered, and the ESG expects other recommendations from the RFT process as well.”