Virtio Corporation, Texas Instruments OMAP™ 3

Virtual Platform for TI's OMAP3 Platform

News Release from: Virtio
08/03/2006

Virtio Corporation has announced its simulation technology for the Texas Instruments OMAP™ 3 Architecture Software Development Platform. The OMAP3430 processor is the first member of the Texas Instruments OMAP 3 architecture, which combines mobile entertainment capabilities with high-performance productivity applications for building new classes of devices.

The VPOM-3430 Virtual Platform provides a complete simulated environment for the OMAP3430 hardware and software platform. This platform enables system designers focusing on converging mobile phones with advanced video and imaging technologies to build and test the software for their systems early on in the development process. This platform also allows designers to take advantage of the new multi-media technologies introduced in the OMAP3430 processor prior to silicon availability.

“The OMAP3430 represents the best opportunity for system designers and developers to build mobile multimedia devices incorporating imaging, audio, video and productivity applications,” stated Avner Goren, worldwide marketing director, Cellular Systems, Texas Instruments. “Virtio's VPOM-3430 allows designers to take advantage of the new technologies in OMAP3430 to begin building a new generation of applications that enables convergence of different media types. Because the VPOM-3430 is available prior to silicon availability, software developers can begin software development sooner and accelerate their time to market.”

Virtio Virtual Platforms provide simulated reference designs that deliver system-level software development environments months before the actual development silicon and system may be ready. These platforms provide an ideal way to engage in software development prior to the availability of new hardware. Once the hardware is available, Virtual Platforms continue to provide visibility at later stages of design. The end result is more complete, higher-quality system software that meets or beats development schedules.

As the first member of the OMAP 3 family, the OMAP3430 processor packs a set of new technologies including the newest ARMv7 architecture and upgraded Imaging and Video Acceleration (IVA 2+) technology.

The OMAP3430 processor is the industry's first applications processor based on the ARM Cortex™-A8 superscalar architecture, which delivers triple the performance of the ARM11 core in OMAP 2 processors. The advanced IVA 2+ accelerator will boost video, imaging and audio performance of the device. The VPOM-3430 Virtual Platform simulates all these technologies and also supports TI's M-Shield security framework enhanced with ARM® TrustZone® technology, which provides a secure hardware foundation to enable secure applications like digital rights management (DRM), terminal security, and m-commerce.

“The VPOM-3430 allows multimedia software developers to leverage all the new technologies introduced in the first OMAP 3 processor,” explained Filip Thoen, Chief Technical Officer of Virtio. “By providing a pre-silicon development target, developers can mitigate risk and optimize their software prior to silicon availability.” Thoen added, “In addition, the advanced multi-core debug features in Virtio's platforms enable the software developer to gain better debug visibility and control into this multi-core system and develop software more productively. The result is better software performance and better hardware utilization, delivered more quickly.”

Virtio offers both a standard Virtual Platform and a Platform Development Kit (PDK). With the Virtual Platform, a developer can create and test new software configurations to boot operating systems, run applications or develop low-level drivers. The PDK offers the added ability to customize the platform hardware by using the authoring tools included with the PDK license. A developer can add user-defined instrumentation to easily profile software operations and collect execution statistics in order to fine-tune system and software operation.