 | |
| Formation | 2000 (2000) |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Standards |
Official language | English |
| Website | accellera.org |
Accellera Systems Initiative (Accellera) is astandards organization that supports a mix of user and vendor standards and open interfaces development in the area ofelectronic design automation (EDA) andintegrated circuit (IC) design and manufacturing. It is less constrained than theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is therefore the starting place for many standards. Once mature and adopted by the broader community, the standards are usually transferred to the IEEE.[1]
In 2000, Accellera was founded from the merger ofOpen Verilog International (OVI) andVHDL International, the developers ofVerilog andVHDL respectively. Both were originally formed nine years earlier in 1991.
In June 2009, a merger was announced between Accellera andThe SPIRIT Consortium, another major EDA standards organization focused onIP deployment and reuse.[2] The SPIRIT Consortium obtainedSystemRDL from the SystemRDL Alliance[3] and then developedIP-XACT. The merger was completed in April 2010.[4] SPIRIT stood for "Structure for Packaging, Integrating and Re-using IP within Tool-flows".
In December 2011, Accellera and the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) approved their merger, adopting the name Accellera Systems Initiative (Accellera) while continuing to developSystemC.[5][6]
In October 2013, Accellera acquired theOpen Core Protocol (OCP) standard, the intellectual property of theOCP International Partnership (OCP-IP).[7]
TheSPIRIT Consortium was a group of vendors and users ofelectronic design automation (EDA) tools, defining standards for the exchange ofsystem-on-a-chip (SoC) design information.[8] The standards defined includedIP-XACT, an XML schema for vendor-neutral descriptions of design components, andSystemRDL, a language for describing registers in components.[9] SPIRIT stood for "Structure for Packaging, Integrating and Re-using IP within Tool-flows".
In June 2009 it was announced that SPIRIT would merge with Accellera.[10]
There were four levels of membership in the SPIRIT consortium. TheBoard of Directors (BoD) was the ruling body.[11] Members around the time of the merge were:
Contributing members performed the standardization work and donate time and effort to the production of new specifications.[12]
Reviewing member status was a free membership for companies. These get early access to specifications to facilitate a deep review round of each proposal before it goes public.[13]
Associate member status was similar to a reviewing membership but for academics and other not-for-profit organizations.[14]
TheOpen Core Protocol International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was an independent, non-profit semiconductor industry consortium formed to administer the support, promotion and enhancement of theOpen Core Protocol (OCP). OCP was the first fully supported, openly licensed, comprehensive, interface socket for semiconductor intellectual property (IP) cores. The mission of OCP-IP was to address problems relating to design, verification, and testing which are common to IP core reuse in "plug and play"system on a chip (SoC) products. This initiative comprehensively fulfills system-level integration requirements by promotingIP core reusability and reducing design time, risk and manufacturing costs for SoC designs. Design teams developing consumer,data processing,telecom (wireless or wired),datacom and mass storage applications can gain significant benefits from the OCP-IP solution.
Corporate members have a right to be eligible for election to the Board of Directors.Associate member companies have voting rights in all of Accellera's Technical Working Groups.[15]
The following EDA standards developed by Accellera were ratified by IEEE by 2019:[2]
The following EDA initiatives were developed by Accellera:
