April 23, 2007 -- GateRocket, Inc. has announced availability of the Device Native verification product that gives FPGA designers the power to validate designs with one to two orders of magnitude faster simulation, and realize actual device behavior early in the design process. RocketDrive is a hardware and software solution that adds significant value to existing design verification environments without a change in design flow or verification methodology.

The RocketDrive Device Native verification solution is powered by the speed of hardware, the accuracy of the true chip behavior and the unbounded scalability of a system prototype. RocketDrive offers the ability to exhaustively validate and test an FPGA design before committing to production, enabling shorter product development times, higher product quality and improved performance to meet or exceed the requirements of today's demanding marketplace. GateRocket's software allows the verification engineer to place any portions of the FPGA design into the RocketDrive and link it to his or her existing simulation platform. This allows the FPGA to be used natively to speed verification by replacing FPGA models with actual hardware; investigate hardware bugs and test alternatives; and run application level software against a Device Native representation of the design.

Traditional emulation environments strive to be technology independent, but suffer from long and arduous startup efforts for each project and produce inaccurate results. GateRocket's new approach leverages the strength and uniqueness of the FPGA device and the flexibility of popular simulators to deliver a unique and accurate verification solution for these advanced design projects.

In addition, the RocketDrive enables rapid, accurate analysis of IP components by removing the need for special and inaccurate software models since the IP resides directly in the target FPGA device that is in the RocketDrive. For the first time, the designer sees the real on-chip IP behavior while operating within their existing flexible simulation and test verification environment.

The RocketDrive takes minutes to install in any Linux PC and integrates seamlessly with the user's existing design and verification environment. The RocketDrive complements design tools from all leading EDA vendors including Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, Synplicity, and the FPGA vendor tools from Altera and Xilinx.

"Electronics companies use FPGAs to miniaturize their products while significantly increasing features to meet market demand and create new markets; however electronic design engineers face a crisis in their inability to adequately verify and test these increasingly complex designs," said Dave Orecchio, GateRocket's President and CEO. "GateRocket's solution addresses this problem with the unique and highly productive Device Native approach that can cut in half the time it takes to develop the electronic products we use every minute of every day."

Pricing and Availability