Making embedded software reusable for SoCs

Making embedded software reusable for SoCs
By Jack Shandle and Grant Martin, EEdesign
March 1, 2002 (6:31 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020301S0104

The following Market Perspective outlines the Tensilica in Santa Clara, California and Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Actel Cor p. in Santa Clara, California. For their implementation, these products depend on hardware-dependent software that is difficult to reuse. The result is an HdS landscape that is as varied as it is complex. Reusability of software components such as the ones just described will begin by requiring a rigorous process to create them.

With the use of embedded software growing in several aspects of SoC designs, one quickly begins to appreciate that it is taking a bigger and bigger portion of the people-years of development time. Just as hardware IP reuse has grown from 10 percent to 90 percent, so the configurability and complexity of the next generation of SoCs will require that software development will dominate the SoC design process in the not too distant future. Estimates of design-team people-hours spent on developing software range as high as 90 percent.(4)

Platform-based design
Until very recently, there has been little public discussion about software reuse outside the SoC community . Inside VSIA member companies such as Nokia, Motorola, ST Microelectronics, ARM, Infineon, and Alcatel, however, it is a cause for great concern. These companies have committed themselves not only to IP reuse but also to platform-based design (PBD) as a strategic solution.

Alcatel, for example, envisions its SoC implementation path as offering a steady increase in hardware and software integration and to move HW and SW codesign and covalidation earlier in the design cycle. Without platforms and reusable, deeply embedded software, these goals cannot be easily attained internally, says Frank Pospiech, HdS Program Manager at Alcatel. That firm is already deeply committed to the standards-based path in SoC development. An early adopter of VSIA standards, the company expects to improve control over its designs by profiling and packaging its own IP in the common, standard framework provided by VSIA.

Typically, casual observers have described SoC platform-based design rather simplistically as a library o f cores all " Frank Pospiech at Alcatel and Bob Altizer at Motorola and 5. H. Chang et al., Surviving the SoC Revolution: A Guide to Platform-Based Design, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, Mass., 1999.
6. A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli and G. Martin, "Platform-Based Design and Software Design Metho dology for Embedded Systems," IEEE Trans. Design & Test of Computers, Nov.-Dec. 2001.
7. "VSIA Adoption and Use Report," VSI Alliance, Nov. 2001.
8. G. Martin and B. Altizer, "VSIA Embedded Systems Study Group Conclusions and Recommendations"