Several years ago Synopsys acquired Virtio and started to build a presence in the virtual prototyping market. This coupled well with their acquisition of physical prototyping and I have been eagerly awaiting announcements of the full blown hybrid prototyping system that I believe will be so badly required in the near future. With the introduction of the OSCI TLM 2.0 standard 18 months ago that enabled model interoperability, this market has started to take off.

Today, Synopsys announced it has acquired VaST Systems Technology Corporation to extend its virtual prototyping solutions into the automotive and consumer application space. The acquisition adds a set of processor sub-system models frequently found in automotive and consumer applications according to Synopsys. These models allow developers to accelerate the virtualization of electronic systems and to start software development nine to 12 months prior to the availability of silicon.

"In order to meet the stringent development requirements associated with today's growing electronics and software content in automotive and consumer products, developers are virtualizing their electronic sub-systems to start software development earlier, improve their productivity and deliver better-tested, higher quality products," said Joachim Kunkel, senior vice president and general manager of the solutions group at Synopsys. "By adding VaST's complementary virtual prototyping solutions to Synopsys' existing virtual and rapid prototyping product portfolio, we can deliver a robust system prototyping solution to automotive and consumer application developers."

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Brian Bailey – keeping you covered