The Virtual Socket Interface Alliance, formed in 1996 by Cadence Design Systems Inc to speed up the development of a system-on-a- chip industry (CI No 2,991), is set to release its first public specifications next week, according to Electronic Engineering Times. The Alliance, which now has over 150 members from the IP intellectual property industry of semiconductor companies, system houses, IP provides and electronic design automation software houses, will announce the specifications at the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco, which opens June 15. The specifications are intended to enable the mixing of IP blocks from various sources onto a single chip. Meanwhile, Texas Instruments Inc announced yesterday that it had started a joint development effort with Synopsis Inc working on system level, application specific integrated circuits design for system-on-a- chip components based on 0.25 micron and 0.18 micron technology. The effort will concentrate on design reuse methodologies, and will support the integration of pre-designed modules for embedded processors including Advanced RISC Machines Ltd’s ARM microprocessors and TI digital signal processors.
