Posts filed under 'In the News'
July 11th, 2008
We got an E-mail from Gary Delp thanking us for our review and feedback on the SystemRDL spec. We asked for and received Gary’s permission to share it on our blog.
“Semifore reviewed the SystemRDL spec in detail, and provided very helpful feedback for our June 2008 working group meeting. The feedback is helping us to focus our plans for attribute namespace management. I will be recommending that we include Semifore in the list of contributors to the draft standard, and will greatly appreciate your continued input into the work of the SPIRIT consortium.”
Gary Delp, Technical Director, The SPIRIT Consortium.
As a company, Semifore supports standards and is committed to solving our customers’ problems. We have been a member of the Spirit Consortium since 2006.
May 15th, 2008
Semifore today appointed Herbert Winsted to the position of director of business development. Mr. Winsted will be responsible for worldwide sales and support.
Semifore provides address maps for both new and legacy designs. Our single web-based source for your address map provides RTL, C and design documents views. Semifore provides accurate address maps as the design evolves. Semifore Inc was founded in 2006 to provide accurate specifications across functional teams.
“Mr. Winsted has broad global business experience, said Richard Weber, CEO of Semifore. “I’m confident that his experience with major account management will continue to create best practices that drive revenue growth.”
A 25-year EDA veteran, Mr. Winsted provided world wide sales and support for major accounts at Cadence Design, Silicon Valley Research, and Silvar-Lisco. He held various management positions at GEC Plessey Semiconductor and National Semiconductor. Mr. Winsted began his EDA career at Advanced Micro Devices, as a lead mask designer.
May 7th, 2008
Visit us at DAC Booth #681. See why Semiore is replacing internal tools for managing register address maps.
45th Annual Design Automation Conference
Anaheim, California
June 8 - 13, 2008
Imagine the whole design team working from a common control register specification viewable from a web page. We can work with you to import your existing register maps into CSRSpec. We may be able to fully or partially automate this process, depending upon your specific circumstances.
For DAC registration http://www.dac.com/45th/onlinereg.html
April 7th, 2008
Our partner Gary Stringham & Associates (www.garystringham.com) is presenting at the Embedded Systems Conference (www.cmp-egevents.com/web/esv/home), April 14-18, 2008, in San Jose, California, register now to attend either or both of these sessions that Gary will be presenting:
ESC-106 Best Practices in Hardware/Firmware Interface Design
Full-day tutorial: 8:30am - 4:30pm, Monday, April 14
Room: J1
ESC-346 Twenty-five Lessons Learned in Hardware/Firmware Interface Design
90-minute class: 2:00pm - 3:30pm, Wednesday, April 16
Room: J1
Another great source of information:
Their newsletter is a great source for best practices to bridge the hardware/ firmware divide. Documentation plays a key role in this effort since engineers must refer to it constantly to look up register and bit details. They have a number of time tested best practices on register documentation.
March 8th, 2008
Semifore and 74ze Engineering announced a strategic partnership today to provide services to import address maps for legacy design into Semifore’s register management solution. Once converted, Semifore’s CSRCompiler can manage register specifications in Verilog, C, and a variety of documentation outputs including HTML, Adobe FrameMaker, and Microsoft Word. A single input file eliminates wasted time debugging typos, searching for missing parameters, and reading stale specifications.
“We are pleased to select 74ze Engineering as a partner for design services,” said Richard Weber, CEO of Semifore. “74ze Engineering service offering makes it very easy for companies to reuse legacy IP blocks. Our customers value how they can now eliminate the multiple layers of scripts that were previously necessary to reuse the blocks.”
“Semifore’s CSRCompiler enables us to capture and reuse IP blocks easily,” said Peter Rohr, project manager and co-founder of 74ze Engineering. “Neither our engineers nor our clients need to spend days tracing through layers of scripts to ensure that the IP blocks are actually the same and can use the same software driver.”
“Semifore’s tool allows us to streamline a flow which would often waste engineering cycles fixing sloppy bugs and add a longer ramp-up time for newcomers to a project,” said Linc Jepson, CEO and co-founder of 74ze Engineering. “We can now offer a 48-hour import service that cleanly migrates a company to single-source, auto-generation of all of the files related to their register map: C-header files, register RTL code, and documentation. CSRCompiler is something we’ve seen a lot of companies burn a lot of internal engineering hours building and maintaining themselves.”
“With the partnership with Semifore, the CSR Compiler will be integrated into the jump start offering and included with a one-year right to use, so a customer can immediately use the blocks in their current design projects,” said Linc Jepson.
About 74ze Engineering www.74ze.com
74ze Engineering offer design and verifications services for ICs, FPGAs, and PCB development. With highly qualified teams of engineers in North America and Europe, 74ze offers strong experience in networking, DSPs, backplane development and signal integrity testing.
About Semifore www.semifore.com Semifore provides a single web-based source for your address map provides RTL, C and design documents views. Semifore provides accurate address maps as the design evolves. Semifore Inc was founded in 2006 to provide accurate specifications across functional teams.
March 2nd, 2008
Semifore will be exhibiting at DATE08, Europe’s largest event for the design, test, and manufacture of electronic systems and circuits.
Design, Automation, and Test in Europe
Munich, Germany
10-14 March, 2008
Semifore will be demonstrating the latest version of the CSR product tools for address map registers specification. A single web-based page for the Register Address Map eliminates wasted time debugging typos, missing parameters, and stale specifications. Come by and see us at booth B4.
February 15th, 2008
John McKenna has joined the Advisory Board of Semifore. As an advisor, Mr. McKenna will provide Semifore with strategic insight into the SOC semiconductor industry and provide direction for the company’s register address map platform.
Mr. McKenna has worked in a variety of roles in the last twenty-five years: director of engineering, director of software engineering, and director of customer support. Companies he has worked directly for include AMCC, MMC Networks, SVR and Amdahl.
“We are thrilled to have Mr. McKenna join our advisory board,” said Richard Weber, CEO of Semifore. “His experience growing successful teams for developing and supporting embedded software for complex processors and forging strong partnerships will help hit our next set of growth targets.”
“I have been impressed not only by my own evaluation of Semifore’s offering but by customer response,” McKenna observed. “Semifore has identified a much more powerful approach to keeping register specification in sync across hardware, software, and documentation teams collaborating on SOC designs. When you combine that with their commitment to current and emerging standards you have a solution that companies can embrace for higher productivity and fewer errors without fear of becoming stranded in a proprietary format.”
Semifore provides address maps for both new and legacy designs. Our single web-based source for your address map provides RTL (both Verilog and VHDL), C and design documents views. Semifore provides accurate address maps as the design evolves. Semifore Inc was founded in 2006 to provide accurate specifications across functional teams.
October 30th, 2007
Semifore profiled in EETimes. Read the article here.
June 13th, 2007
After a thorough evaluation, CDT has selected Semifore’s CSR Product Suite to assist in the design and verification of their next generation of TMA (Total Matrix Addressing) displays.
“We used Semifore’s CSR product suite for our latest design, which has over 50 control registers. Semifore saves our development team time since we only have to specify the registers once. The register decode Verilog, all of the C headers, and the documentation are generated automatically, and are always in sync with each other.” said David Warren, hardware design engineer at Cambridge Display Technology.
“Semifore has extensive experience helping companies manage and build configuration registers,” said Richard Weber, chief executive officer of Semifore. “The address map of current SOC designs has reached a level of complexity which renders its specification and subsequent modification prohibitively expensive if the hardware, software, verification, and technical publication teams must independently manage and transform this information to finish the product.”
CSRSpec is the next generation language with powerful set of features that include:
- Hierarchical address map specification: arrays of objects, groups of CSRs
- Reusable templates for configurable IP blocks
- Object oriented architecture
CSRCompiler generates hardware, software, and documentation views:
- Verilog or VHDL RTL and headers
- C or Perl headers for firmware
- HTML web pages for design team
- Framemaker or Word for internal and customer documentation
- Spirit IP-XACT XML
Semifore provides address maps for both new and legacy designs. For legacy designs we offer design services to import your existing register maps into CSRSpec. We can do this on a case by case basis, or fully-automate the process depending upon your needs. We offer both design services and license CSRCompiler on an annual basis for your use on-site. Our single web-based source for your address map provides RTL, C and design documents views. Semifore provides accurate address maps as the design evolves. Semifore Inc was founded in 2006 to provide accurate specifications across functional teams. More information on Semifore can be found at: www.semifore.com
About CDT
Cambridge Display Technology is a pioneer in the development of polymer organic light emitting diodes (POLEDs) and their use in a wide range of electronic display products used for information management, communications and entertainment. POLEDs are part of the family of OLEDs, which are thin, lightweight and power efficient devices that emit light when an electric current flows. POLEDs offer an enhanced visual experience and superior performance characteristics compared with other flat panel display technologies such as liquid crystal displays, and have the key advantage that they can be applied in solution using printing processes. Founded in 1992, the company is headquartered in Cambridge, UK and listed on the US NASDAQ National Market under the symbol ‘OLED’. In 2005, CDT and Sumitomo Chemical established a joint venture called Sumation which develops, manufactures and sells P-OLED materials to the display industry. More information on CDT can be found at: www.cdtltd.co.uk
May 10th, 2007
Semifore announces partnership with Gary Stringham & Associates, LLC. Read the EETimes article here.
Semifore and Gary Stringham & Associates announced a partnership today that will provide specialized versions of control register templates. The Stringham Templates embed Gary’s best practices and enable a correct-by-construction approach to managing control register specifications in Verilog, C, and a variety of documentation outputs including HTML, Adobe FrameMaker, and Microsoft Word.
“We are pleased to announce support of the Stringham Templates,” said Richard Weber, CEO of Semifore. “Stringham Templates make it very easy for designers to follow a standard by giving them a pre-configured set to choose from. Now they can not only follow the Stringham’s Methodology and checklists, but in many cases leverage his templates for easy, correct-by-construction adherence to design standards. Our customers appreciate the web-based single source for all the configuration registers specification.”
“We were excited to discover the CSR Product Suite from Semifore that addresses the lack of support for cross-discipline development between hardware and firmware,” said Gary Stringham, President of Gary Stringham & Associates. “This tool and its customized Stringham Templates enable and enforce many of the best practices that are part of the Stringham Methodology. The template facility of CSR Product Suite allows the creation of the Stringham Templates, enabling hardware and firmware engineers to more easily implement the Stringham Methodology.
With the partnership with Semifore, the CSR Product Suite will be integrated into specific training class and will include a complimentary one-year right to use so that after the class, the attendees can immediately use the templates in their current design projects.
“Weber also noted, “Our customers are still free to code up individual register descriptions or build their own templates for CSRCompiler, but this new relationship with a recognized expert on hardware/firmware integration allows us to deliver more value to our customers and lets Stringham’s clients and workshop attendees get an easy way to use Gary’s methodology on their next design.”
About Gary Stringham & Associates, LLC
Gary Stringham & Associates, LLC, is an embedded systems training and consulting firm specializing in the hardware/firmware interface integration, firmware development, and in solving difficult technical problems. Its president and founder, Gary Stringham draws upon more than two decades of industry experience that has resulted in averting chip respins and saving millions in development costs. The Stringham Methodology reduces the development time and costs of both hardware and firmware, enabling products to get to market sooner and with higher quality. He recently presented at the Embedded Systems Conference, “Twenty-five Lessons Learned from Hardware/Firmware Interface Design.” The Stringham Templates are based on CSRSpec language and are currently delivered as a component of his workshops. Gary Stringham & Associates, LLC, was founded in 2004 to promote good design practices at the hardware/firmware interface.
About Semifore
Semifore provides address maps for both new and legacy designs. For legacy designs we offer design services to import your existing register maps into CsrSpec. We can do this on a case by case basis, or fully-automate the process depending upon your needs. We offer both design services and license CSRCompiler on an annual basis for your use on-site. Our single web-based source for your address map provides RTL, C and design documents views. Semifore provides accurate address maps as the design evolves. Semifore Inc was founded in 2006 to provide accurate specifications across functional teams.
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