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News
NOVEMBER 10,
1999
 SpecC
Consortium Announced at Embedded Technology Conference and Exhibition
MST '99
Applications for new consortium
accepted from today
Tokyo, Japan - Industry leaders in embedded software, EDA, IP and systems
today announced establishment of the SpecC Technology Open Consortium,
an international forum for promoting the SpecC language and methodology.
The new consortium will seek to enhance the development and design process
for electronic products through promotion SpecC language, a new specification
description language. It will establish a SpecC-based system-design
methodology that enables smooth, accelerated specifications exchanges
during the product development process, from the specification phase
to final design phase. The new methodology is expected to achieve significant
productivity gains in development of electronics products, including
communications equipment, portable products, multimedia equipment and
set-top boxes.
Originally developed at University of California, Irvine, SpecC language-specification
description language based on C-represents the fruits of many years
of research and sponsorship and collaboration by numerous Fortune 100
companies, industry consortiums and universities. Key sponsors include
Toshiba Corporation and Hitachi, Ltd. The language is designed to support
smooth overall integration of product development, from determining
specifications to design implementation. SpecC language allows the same
semantics and syntax to be used to represent specifications in a conceptual
system, in hardware and software and, most importantly, in intermediate
specifications and information during hardware and software co-design
stages.
 The
newly-established consortium aims to promote higher productivity in
product development by securing wide acceptance of a SpecC language-based
methodology that enhances development integration of the development
process and that overcomes constraints on time-to-market and cost.
Conventional product development relies on natural languages, such as
English or Japanese, to describe specifications from the product planning
phase to the system implementation design phase. The result is ambiguity
and vagueness that renders it difficult to maintain consistent specifications
between phases.
SpecC language directly addresses the issue of smooth integration of
development phases. Its writes executable specifications at the specification
design level, supporting inter-phase consistency and reducing ambiguity.
The result is a clear, well-established design process, from specification
to implementation, with far fewer misses in communication between design
divisions. This process also allows customer views and demands, marketing
goals and designer expertise to be evaluated and analyzed at significantly
less cost in time and resources and to be quickly incorporated into
the final product.
 The
pace of innovation and intense competition in technology development
prevents any single company from establishing design process language,
methodology and tools. Bringing real solutions to designers' desks requires
that systems and parts companies are able to exchange and trade specifications,
and the interoperability of development and design tool from leading
tool vendors. SpecC language clears the way forward by achieving just
this.
The establishment of the SpecC Technology Open Consortium as an open
community will promote collaboration among companies in the systems,
semiconductor, IP, components and tool industries, and facilitate emergence
of a de facto standard language and interchange format for system specification
design using SpecC language. Integration of specifications and design
steps in the SOC design process in SpecC methodology will be also achieved.
 The SpecC
Technology Open Consortium is the first organization of its kind in
the electronics industry to promise the establishment of a de facto
standard that consistently unites product specifications and implementation.
It activities are expected to bring broad productivity gains to the
industry: in Japan alone, over 200,000 engineers working on embedded
software and about 10,000 system LSI engineers will benefit from evolutionary
productivity gains.
Initially, Toshiba Corporation will provide the consortium with a secretariat,
and its office will be located at Soliton Systems, K.K, in Tokyo, Japan.
Applications from potential new members will be received from today,
and broad support is anticipated from leading embedded software tool
vendors, EDA vendors, systems companies, universities, and research
facilities. More than 20 organizations are already members.
Activities of SpecC Technology Open Consortium will be publicized at
the consortium's web site at www.SpecC.gr.jp, where users can review
the introduction of SpecC technology, and the consortium's activities
and research results.
Press Contacts: Corporate Communications Office, Toshiba Corporation
03 (3457) 2100 SpecC Technology Open Consortium: Operation 03(3457)4492
For applications: SpecC Technology Open Consortium: Office (c/o Soliton
Systems, K.K.) 03 (5360) 3851 E-mail: info_SpecC@specc.gr.jp
| Press Contacts: |
| Corporate Communications Office, Toshiba Corporation |
03(3457)2100 |
| SpecC Technology Open Consortium: Operation |
03(3457)4492 |
| For applications: |
| SpecC Technology Open Consortium: Office (c/o Soliton
Systems, K.K.) |
|
03(5360)3851 |
| E-Mail |
info_SpecC@specc.gr.jp |
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