About
Who builds VisualSim, what this site hosts, and why the hackathon exists.
Mirabilis Design Inc is a California corporation founded in 2003 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company builds VisualSim, a system-level modeling and simulation platform used by electronics and semiconductor engineering teams to explore architecture trade-offs in performance, power, and cost before committing to silicon. Design groups at networking, storage, wireless, and processor companies use VisualSim to model interconnects, memory subsystems, chiplet integrations, and complete SoC platforms.
The platform provides a graphical, hierarchical modeling environment with parameterized IP libraries, and integrates with SystemC, MATLAB, Excel, Verilog, and C/C++/Java workflows. Engineering teams report significantly faster model development compared with hand-built SystemC environments, which is why the same environment powers our education programs.
The hackathon invites students worldwide to build system architecture models across three competitions: Engineering (model construction and accuracy), Sales (solution positioning), and Marketing (technical story telling). Participants work with the same VisualSim tool used in industry, receive mentorship from practicing architects, and compete for prizes across regional finals.
SEAL is the structured learning platform hosted on this site. It teaches semiconductor system architecture through hands-on labs covering AMBA interconnects (AXI, AHB), processor families (ARM), memory hierarchies and DRAM controllers, storage protocols, and networking standards. Each lab walks from aim and objectives through model construction steps, use cases, and assessment questions, using real VisualSim models.
Universities and training programs adopt SEAL to give students industry practice: professors assign labs per class, review follow-up questions, and track progress while students earn shareable badges.
