The need for ESL 2.0 has been created by the break down of old design methods and the emergence of new design challenges led by the need to design better products faster using multi-core designs. It also aims at breaking the isolation of each design/development team and enables enterprises to get better designed-into customer products sooner. Virtual hardware platforms are at the core of ESL 2.0, which is characterized by the combination of:

• The application of ESL technologies and methodologies to a larger community of users including architect and hardware development teams (at the origin of ESL), and now extended to software development, system integration, and test teams.
• The rapid rollout and use of these technologies and methodologies in a production environment.
• The use of virtual hardware platforms by the larger enterprise and its ecosystem through marketing and business development functions.

The core of ESL 2.0 is virtual hardware platforms, which can be used by the wider community, exchanged within or across company boundaries and applied to production designs.

ESL 2.0 is not one fixed event in time. It is an inflection point whose consequences are important for companies using ESL technologies and for companies delivering ESL technologies.

CoWare is leading the way in moving companies from proof-of-concept ESL to ESL 2.0 through solutions addressing the larger community (platform architecture design, platform verification, application sub-systems design, processor design, DSP algorithm design and software development), mature technologies and methodologies ready for production and with an integrated flow enabling the deployment of more effective go-to-market strategies.