Virtio was founded in June 1999 as a spin-off of National Semiconductor.
Virtio is a privately held company and has been financed to date by equity
investments from BancBoston Ventures,
Newbury Ventures,
Pitango Venture Capital,
Mofet Venture Fund and
LSI Logic Corporation .
Virtio's technology for virtual prototyping was initially developed at National
Semiconductor Research Lab (NSRL) for more than two years and has been
significantly enhanced by the Virtio team since the spin-off.
First Successes
Virtio's technology was successfully used to design and test software for
Sitel's (National Semiconductor subsidiary) new DECT base-band platform, the
SC14405,
before the hardware implementation was ready. Virtio improved National
Semiconductor's time to market through early software development; the
"Dazzle" project delivered a single chip embedded system solution for
a DECT phone in 6 months through the use of a virtual prototype to develop test
software early in the project.
Virtio technology was also used by Impulsesoft to develop a complete Bluetooth base-band model
and protocol stack. The virtual platform developed, enabled early access to
Impulesesoft's Bluetooth base-band model and protocol stack for customers to
evaluate functionality in advance of hardware availability.
Virtio Technology On-line
Since the spin-off, Virtio has developed an extensive web-based infrastructure to allow for the evaluation and deployment of virtual
platforms on-line enabling early software development, saving time-to-market and improving quality of embedded system software. |
