Startup Somnium Technologies Ltd. (Bristol, England) claims to have patent-pending techniques that will allow its development tools to perform software optimizations automatically, delivering better results faster that is possible with existing software development methods.
The company is preparing to announce development tools for embedded software and is initially targeting Cortex-based processor cores from ARM, including systems that mix Cortex-A and Cortex-M cores heterogeneously. The company hopes to succeed by addressing a coming explosion in software complexity as projects go multi-core and step up to 32- and 64-bit addressing.
One result of that increasing complexity is that 40 percent of embedded projects are over budget and behind schedule, the company claims on its website, without referencing sources. A second claim is that more than 60 percent of embedded projects fail to meet performance and functionality specifications on completion.
The company was co-founded in April 2011 by a team of four including Dave Edwards, CEO and CTO; and Roger Barker, business development manager. Prior to founding Somnium Edwards was technology director of Icera Semiconductor Ltd. and before that held design engineer positions at Siroyan Ltd. and STMicroelectronics.
Edwards told Electronics 360 that the company engineering team has expertise in designing processors and software tools gained at previous companies. "This is the first time we're making software tools for processors we didn't architect."
Edwards said that Somnium's tool set would be based on something called resequencing technology. "Automatically you can significantly decrease the code size and therefore the energy footprint – all this can be done without altering source code," he said. In addition the tool set will support software development for heterogeneous system chips that could include Cortex-A and Cortex-M cores, he added. Most tool chains support only single cores and therefore in multicore designs developers can ended up making changes that impact software running elsewhere in the system with no net benefit and sometimes making performance worse. Edwards called it the problem of "squeezing the balloon."
Somnium will supply a "complete tool chain," Edwards said; the implication being that his will include multicore-capable profilers and debuggers in an integrated development environment. What is not clear is whether the Somnium team has also developed its own C/C++ compiler for the ARM instruction sets, although Edwards has relevant experience, having led the team that developed a compiler for the Icera modem engine.
Edwards said the technology is applicable across the range from microcontrollers to 64-bit multicore systems. "The problems are the same at both ends of the spectrum," he said. "We are solely supporting ARM at present. It's the biggest market and the most interesting," said Edwards, not ruling out the possibility that Somnium could port is its techniques and tools to other architectures and combinations of architectures.
ARM already owns Keil, which it operates as a development tools brand so the arrival of Somnium could be seen as competition. When asked if ARM is aware and supportive of Somnium's efforts, Edwards said: "We are members of the ARM Connected Community. Our relationship with ARM will get deeper."
Somnium is reported to have closed a $500,000 funding round in March 2013 and is working on closing another round of finance in 2014. "We have some interesting backers and we're gaining traction with a lead semiconductor customer." However, Edwards declined to reveal more. He said the company is keeping its powder dry ready to launch itself and its products on the market during 2014.
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