There have been several articles this year in Electronic Engineering
Times dealing with the emerging trend of using conventional software
languages for "System on Chip" (SoC) design.  The latest such article is
titled "Babel of languages competing for role in SoC design". The text
of this article is available online at
http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?EET19991101S0060 .

All of these articles have focused mostly on using C, C++ and Java as a
successor to Verilog and VHDL. One of the main arguments given is the
availability of large numbers of C and Java developers who could quickly
become SoC ASIC designers. Ada is never mentioned in these articles even
though VHDL has some similarity to Ada.

I think that SoC design could and should be another market opportunity
for Ada.  However the traditional ASIC design tool vendors must be be
convinced that this would be a smart and profitable choice.   I wanted
to bring this to the attention of Team Ada in case some of you are in
position to promote Ada for this emerging market. I'm not an ASIC
designer myself but I plan to write a letter to EETimes.


F. Britt Snodgrass ([log in to unmask])