Bernard Ramanadin

Fast prototyping: a system design flow applied to a complex system-on-chip multiprocessor design

This paper describes a new design flow that significantly reduces time-to-market for highly complex multiprocessor-based System-On-Chip designs. This flow, called Fast Prototyping, enables concurrent hardware and software development, early verification and productive re-use of intellectual property. We describe how using this innovative system design flow, that combines different technologies, such as C modeling, emulation, hard virtual component re-use and CoWare N2C/sup TM/. We achieve better productivity on a multi-processor SOC design.

CO: the Chameleon 64-bit microprocessor ASIC prototype

In the context of designing a complex chip, it is important to have the capability of prototyping the design. Prototypes are the key to ensuring the architecture is implementable, allowing application development to start before silicon, validating the performance estimates (micro-architectural issues). This paper presents the prototyping strategy chosen by the Chameleon 64-bit microprocessor development programme of SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics. We will discuss the choice of making a silicon prototype, its aims (strongly related to the applications development allowance), its realisation, schedules and status.