Real-time System-on-a-Chip Emulation: Emulation Driven System Design with Direct Mapped Virtual Components

Kimmo Kuusilinna, Chen Chang, Hans-Martin Bluethgen, W. Rhett Davis, Brian Richards, Borivoje Nikolic and Robert W. Brodersen

The productivity gap between the designer and the opportunities on silicon places increasing pressure particularly on system verification. A comprehensive design flow for digital systems from high-level algorithmic specifications to FPGA-based emulation and final ASIC implementation. The design is entered only using a component library with predictable performance, therefore, enabling rapid system development and easing the verification burden. Hardware emulation, from this description, enables rapid prototyping of large systems where gate-level simulations are impractical. The primary goal of the emulator is to support design space exploration of realtime algorithms. The design environment is customized towards low-power and data-flow dominant architectures, particularly focusing on applications related to wireless communications. The design process of a 1 Mbit/s transmission system is explored, demonstrating the design convenience and the early performance analysis.