Startup Claims C-code To SoC In 8-16 Weeks

eldavojohn writes "Details are really thin, but the EE Times is reporting that Algotochip claims to be sitting on the 'Holy Grail' of SoC design. From the article: '"We can move your designs from algorithms to chips in as little as eight weeks," said Satish Padmanabhan CTO and founder of Algotochip, whose EDA tool directly implements digital chips from C-algorithms.' Padmanabhan is the designer of the first superscalar digital signal processor. His company, interestingly enough, claims to provide a service that consists of a 'suite of software tools that interprets a customers' C-code without their having any knowledge of Algotochip's proprietary technology and tools. The resultant GDSII design, from which an EDA system can produce the file that goes to TSMC, and all of its intellectual property is owned completely by the customer—with no licenses required from Algotochip.' This was presented at this year's Globalpress Electronics Summit. Too good to be true? Or can we expect our ANSI C code to be automagically implemented in a SoC in such a short time?"

Comments

SystemC

[paugq]

Why not? There is SystemC, a dialect of C++ which can be implemented in hardware (FPGA, for instance). What Algotochip is claiming is just one little more step forward.

Re:SystemC

[JoelDB]

While SystemC does have a synthesizable subset, it's mainly used for simulations at a high level from what I've seen. Going from synthesizable SystemC to hardware is an order of magnitude easier than going from a complex language such as C++ or C down to hardware, which is what this company is claiming. From reading the article I believe Tensilica is using a very similar approach with ASIPs) for bringing high-level lanaguages to hardware, and they are much more established in this field. One of the up-and-comers is AutoESL which was recently acquired by Xilinx. I've played around with this tool and its ability to bring C down to hardware is very impressive.

I hope not, but my money is on overhyped.

[hamster_nz]

Most of these technologies 'C' to hardware technologies are overhyped and under-deliver.

* It is definitely not ANSI C. It might share some syntax elements but that is about it
* C programmers do not make good hardware designers (C programmers will disagree, HDL programmers won't)
* The algorithms used in software by software developers do not translate well into hardware
* If you want "good" hardware developed, use hardware design tools.

If you don't agree with me on these points, post how you would convert "short unsigned value" into ASCII in char digits[5] and I'll show you how to do the same if you were designing a chip...

Re:A better question

[Caratted]

Not sure if serious.

SoC has been emerging as a more common term in the last 5 or 6 years meaning System on a Chip. The advantages are it uses less power to do more things, and a lot of low level functions (radios, gpu rendering, etc) have more direct access to on-board cache and memory, as well as a direct line to RAM. They're used in just about everything and are essentially equivalent to saying CPU (for anything other than a desktop or laptop w/o IGP), these days.