 | |
| Company type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software Technology |
| Founded | 1998; 27 years ago (1998) |
| Defunct | February 5, 2010; 15 years ago (2010-02-05)[1] |
| Fate | acquired byIntel, assets spun out withWind River Systems |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California |
Key people | CEO: John Lambert,Founder : Peter Magnusson |
| Products | Simics |
Number of employees | 55 at peak |
| Parent | Wind River Systems |
| Website | www |
Virtutech was a company founded in 1998 as a spin-off from theSwedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), to commercially develop itsSimicscomputer architecture simulator software. In 2004, Virtutech accepted investment and moved its headquarters to San Jose, California. In 2010, Virtutech was wholly acquired byIntel and became part of Intel's Wind River subsidiary. In 2018, Wind River was sold toTPG Capital, which continues to sell Simics under the Wind River brand. The Intel Stockholm site remains the center of Simics core R&D.
Simics software is used by teams ofsoftware developers tosimulate computer systems. This facilitates the development, testing, and debugging ofembedded software that runs devices such as high-end servers, network hardware, aerospace/military vehicles, and automobiles. Simics allows embedded software developers to create virtual models of hardware using an ordinary desktop computer, run specified sets of tests, and walk the programs through each step of execution, both forwards and backwards.
In 2001,AMD and Virtutech began working collaboratively on simulation for AMD's Hammer chips.[2] In July 2005,IBM selected Virtutech Simics for development of itsPOWER6 platform.[3] In 2007, Virtutech andFreescale announced a collaboration program around multicore processors.[4] Virtutech thus appears to have a customer base that is partly in the embedded software world, and partly in the general computing and server world.
Virtutech was a member ofPower.org.
Asembedded systems become more complex, especially with the advent ofmultiprocessors, it has become increasingly difficult to develop and debugembedded software without the use of specialized tools. Virtutech's idea is to provide tools that allow developers to develop software faster than they would using hardware and traditional development methods. In particular, by modeling a complex hardware system using software running on an ordinary workstation computer, Virtutech claims to reduce the challenge of embedded software development.[5]
On February 5, 2010,Intel announced that it had acquired Virtutech and that Simics will now be maintained by Intel's subsidiaryWind River Systems.[6] The price of the acquisition was $45M.[7]