Critical Blue

Critical Blue Limited is an Edinburgh based software company providing tools for the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) market.

The company’s revolutionary Cascade product enables system and semiconductor design houses to automatically generate an application specific hardware co-processor. This is achieved by processing the object code which has been compiled for the main microprocessor in the design. Within the Cascade tool, the designer can select which application functions should remain in software, running on the main microprocessor, and which should be implemented in hardware. The tool provides feedback on the performance and area implications of these decisions and when the designer is satisfied with the partitioning between functionality implemented in hardware and that in software, the tool will automatically generate synthesisable VHDL or Verilog for implementing the new custom co-processor. The Cascade tool will work with any RISC based processor and its software development tool chain. 

Cascade can be applied equally to existing designs or new projects. The benefits of the approach adopted by Critical Blue are as follows:

automatic generation of an application specific co-processor leads to a shorter time to market for new designs.

implementation of software functions as an application specific co- processor frees resource on the main processor, enabling new functionality to be developed in software. This flexibility shortens the time to market.

application specific co-processors provide a low cost performance enhancement for existing designs.

adoption of the Cascade solution requires a low level of investment for existing design houses. They can continue to leverage the investment they have already made in software and hardware development tools.

For more information, visit www.criticalblue.com