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Draft:Chronologic Simulation

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Chronologic Simulation
Company typePrivate
HeadquartersLos Altos, California, United States
Key people
  • John Sanguinetti, CEO and founder
  • Peter Eichenberger, CTO and founder
  • Michael McNamara, VP Engineering
  • Simon Davidmann, VP Europe

Chronologic Simulation, Inc. was a Los Altos, California, USA, based provider of Verilog HDL simulation products. Chronologic Simulation’s main product was VCS (Verilog Compiled Simulator). In 1994 Chronologic was sold to Viewlogic Systems and in 1997 Viewlogic was acquired by Synopsys, Inc. where VCS remains its main HDL simulation offering and one of the leading commercial simulators.

History

In the late 1980s and early 1990s integrated circuits were being designed and verified in Verilog HDL simulators[1]. These simulators were focused on gate level speed and were implemented as language interpreters. Verilog HDL[2] was proprietary and owned by Cadence Design Systems after their acquisition of Gateway Design Automation, the developers of Verilog.

There was competition to Verilog from the US DoD VHDL language that became an IEEE standard and in 1991 Cadence made the proprietary Verilog HDL public and created Open Verilog International (OVI) (later renamed Accellera) to standardize it.[3][4]

The founders of Chronologic[5] saw the opening up of Verilog as an opportunity to adopt software compiler techniques and create a fast compiled code Verilog simulator.[6]

Founding and early Management team[7][8][9]

  • John Sanguinetti, CEO and founder
  • Peter Eichenberger, CTO and founder
  • Michael McNamara, VP Engineering
  • Martin Harding, VP Sales
  • Simon Davidmann, VP Europe

Product

The development of the Verilog Compiled Simulator (VCS) started in 1991 with early development by Sanguinetti[10][9], Eichenberger, and McNamara and by 1993 the first version was released, Harding and Davidmann started up the sales channel, and VCS was in use with commercial users and in education and research.[11][12][13][14] VCS initially parsed the Verilog source and using software compiler techniques created C code which is then subsequently compiled into executable binaries to run on the native host computer.[15] The performance of existing Verilog simulators was excellent at the gate level but lacked needed speed at the RTL level. Chronologic's VCS focused on RTL speed and by using cycle based and complier optimization techniques was often reported as being 10-40 times faster than other commercial products.[16][17][18]

Acquisition

Chronologic Simulation was acquired in 1994 for $26.5 million by Viewlogic Systems, Inc. though there were complications that resulted in lawsuits that were ultimately resolved in 1995. In 1997 Synopsys, Inc., acquired Viewlogic for $497 million.[19][20][21][22][23]

Legacy

When VCS was created in1991 its focus was speed and it has constantly been refactored and revised to ensure it maintains its high performance. VCS is still very widely used and has been kept up to date with all the evolution in the Verilog language, including all the enhancements in HDLs from Superlog that became part of SystemVerilog in the 2010s and later[2]. VCS is key part of Synopsys verification solutions.[24][25]

References

  1. ^ "A brief history of logic simulation". Semiconductor Engineering. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  2. ^ a b Flake, Peter; Moorby, Phil; Golson, Steve; Salz, Arturo; Davidmann, Simon (2020-06-12). "Verilog HDL and its ancestors and descendants". Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4 (HOPL): 87:1–87:90. doi:10.1145/3386337.
  3. ^ "Open Verilog International". Semiconductor Engineering. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  4. ^ Raval, Vrit (2019-08-24). "BRIEF HISTORY OF VERILOG !". VERILOG NOVICE TO WIZARD. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  5. ^ "Chronologic Simulation". Semiconductor Engineering. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  6. ^ Sanguinetti, John (1993-09-11). "Simulation speed and logic design". computerhistory.org.
  7. ^ "SystemVerilog for Design". SpringerLink. 2006. doi:10.1007/0-387-36495-1.
  8. ^ Flake, Peter; Moorby, Phil; Golson, Steve; Salz, Arturo; Davidmann, Simon (2020-06-12). "Verilog HDL and its ancestors and descendants". Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4 (HOPL): 87:1–87:90. doi:10.1145/3386337.
  9. ^ a b Sanguinetti, John (2009-02-28). "Oral History of John Sanguinetti" (PDF). archive.computerhistory.org.
  10. ^ "John Sanguinetti - A Profile". www.aycinena.com. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  11. ^ Olukotun, Kunle (1994-07-04). "A General Method for Compiling Event-Driven Simulations". dl.acm.org.
  12. ^ Palnitkar, Samir (1995-03-27). "Cycle simulation techniques" (PDF). archive.sigda.org.
  13. ^ Wang, Tsu-Hua; Tan, Chong Guan (1995-03). "Practical code coverage for Verilog". Proceedings. 1995 IEEE International Verilog HDL Conference: 99–104. doi:10.1109/IVC.1995.512503. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ "Using VCS". www.cs.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  15. ^ Murphy, Sean (2009-05-20). "Interview with John Sanguinetti". SKMurphy, Inc. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  16. ^ Wharton, David (1994-06-01). "Benchmarks Test a Few Simulators". Electronic Engineering Times (EE Times). pp. 50–52, 92.
  17. ^ Thomas, Don (1994-03-07). "Benchmark descriptions for comparing the performance of Verilog and VHDL simulators". Proceedings of the 1994 International Verilog HDL Conference. 1994: 14–16.
  18. ^ EETimes (1996-10-07). "Chronologic VCS 3.1 Increases Accurate Gate-Level Performance". EE Times. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  19. ^ "Viewlogic Systems, Inc". Semiconductor Engineering. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  20. ^ "Chronologic Simulation, Inc. v. Sanguinetti, 892 F. Supp. 318 (D. Mass. 1995)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  21. ^ "Viewlogic settles with Chronologic - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  22. ^ Writer, CBR Staff (1997-10-16). "SYNOPSYS ACQUIRES VIEWLOGIC FOR $500M". Tech Monitor. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  23. ^ EETimes (1997-12-08). "Shareholders Approve Synopsys/Viewlogic Merger". EE Times. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  24. ^ "VCS Datasheet" (PDF). www.synopsys.com. 2024-03-01.
  25. ^ "VCS: Functional Verification Solution | Synopsys". www.synopsys.com. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
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