Applications blaze trail through SoC jungle

The capacity of system chips to include components in a range of types and complexity offers system designers both new opportunities and challenges. They're guaranteed the usual benefits of integration-faster processing with less power consumption-but they also face an unprecedented level of complexity. As a result, an open-ended way to design and verify systems-on-chip (SoCs) has yet to emerge.

But it appears that when a known application area is involved, effective design methods do emerge. In many cases, an SoC design centers on a known function, such as digital signal processing or hard-disk read/write functions, with the leftover silicon real estate devoted to additional known functions. Since the developer is already familiar with the final system functions, verifying the required behavior is much easier.

To leverage that advantage, some design systems are approaching specific applications through configurable computing schemes. For example, Improv systems, which developed an SoC platform that allows applications to be compiled from Java and then fabbed at participating foundries, has now introduced a specific DSP version of its more general system.

FPGA vendors are beginning to climb on the SoC bandwagon by offering system-level programmable chips that contain processor cores and intellectual property. In this In-Focus section, Mentor Graphics' Michael Bohm details this trend and presents some tool sets that help the system designer achieve reliable and effective SoCs.