ENGINEERING THE COMPLEX SOC: FAST, FLEXIBLE DESIGN WITH CONFIGURABLE PROCESSORS

Engineering the Complex SOC

The first unified hardware/software guide to processor-centric SOC design

Processor-centric approaches enable SOC designers to complete far larger projects in far less time. Engineering the Complex SOCis a comprehensive, example-driven guide to creating designs with configurable, extensible processors. Drawing upon Tensilica’s Xtensa architecture and TIE language, Dr. Chris Rowen systematically illuminates the issues, opportunities, and challenges of processor-centric design.

Rowen introduces a radically new design methodology, then covers its essential techniques: processor configuration, extension, hardware/software co-generation, multiple processor partitioning/communication, and more. Coverage includes:

• Why extensible processors are necessary: shortcomings of current design methods

• Comparing extensible processors to traditional processors and hardwired logic

• Extensible processor architecture and mechanisms of processor extensibility

• Latency, throughput, coordination of parallel functions, hardware interconnect options, management of design complexity, and other issues

• Multiple-processor SOC architecture for embedded systems

• Task design from the viewpoints of software andhardware developers

• Advanced techniques: implementing complex state machines, task-to-task synchronization, power optimization, and more

• Toward a “sea of processors”: Long-term trends in SOC design and semiconductor technology