D&R Industry Articles (July 2011)

Featured Article

A UML Representation of a Passive Standby Power Management Architecture for Set-Top Boxes

The paper provides two main technical contributions: (i) an architecture supporting passive standby for a range of set-top boxes (STBs), and (ii) a UML representation of the specification to provide a clear and concise architecture.

Featured Article

SPVR: An IP core for Real-Time Speaker Verification

This paper aims at presenting an IP core whose purpose is to perform real-time speaker verification. The IP core can be used as part of a system to check if the speaker is really the one (he or she) who claims to be.

Featured Article

Improving Verification Efficiency Using Application Specific Instruction Processors

In this paper, we will outline a solution for prototyping, programming and implementing Application Specific Instruction-set Processors (ASIPs). A general introduction into this class of processor architectures and their characteristics is provided. An H.264 design example using the LISA language for ASIP design will be introduced. The effects the usage of ASIPs can have on the verification efficiency will be discussed in detail, specifically the ability for designers to separate hardware verfication from functional verification.

Featured Article

Formal Methods to Verify the Power Manager for an Embedded Multiprocessor Cluster

This paper focuses on the verification of the Power Manager in the context of the MIPS32® 1004K™ Coherent Processing System (CPS), in which various software and hardware events can control switching of power states. Without exhaustive verification of the Power Manager, power management functionality of the design cannot be guaranteed. This paper discusses how we successfully used formal methods to verify the Power Manager.