This book highlights the complex issues, tasks and skills that must be mastered by an IP designer, in order to design an optimized and robust digital circuit to solve a problem. The techniques and methodologies described can serve as a bridge between specifications that are known to the designer and RTL code that is final outcome, reducing significantly the time it takes to convert initial ideas and concepts into right-first-time silicon. Coverage focuses on real problems rather than theor...

This book provides a hands-on, application-oriented guide to the language and methodology of both SystemVerilog Assertions and SytemVerilog Functional Coverage. Readers will benefit from the step-by-step approach to functional hardware verification, which will enable them to uncover hidden and hard to find bugs, point directly to the source of the bug, provide for a clean and easy way to model complex timing checks and objectively answer the question ‘have we functionally verified everythi...

This book serves as a practical guide for practicing engineers who need to design embedded systems for high-speed data acquisition and control systems. A minimum amount of theory is presented, along with a review of analog and digital electronics, followed by detailed explanations of essential topics in hardware design and software development. The discussion of hardware focuses on microcontroller design (ARM microcontrollers and FPGAs), techniques of embedded design, high speed data acqui...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of automatic model refinement, which helps readers close the gap between initial textual specification and its desired implementation. The authors enable readers to follow two “directions” for refinement: Vertical refinement, for adding detail and precision to single description for a given model and Horizontal refinement, which considers several views on one level of abstraction, refining the system specification by dedicated descriptions for st...

This book analyzes the challenges in verifying Dynamically Reconfigurable Systems (DRS) with respect to the user design and the physical implementation of such systems. The authors describe the use of a simulation-only layer to emulate the behavior of target FPGAs and accurately model the characteristic features of reconfiguration. Readers are enabled with this simulation-only layer to maintain verification productivity by abstracting away the physical details of the FPGA fabric. Two imple...

This book introduces a new level of abstraction that closes the gap between the textual specification of embedded systems and the executable model at the Electronic System Level (ESL). Readers will be enabled to operate at this new, Formal Specification Level (FSL), using models which not only allow significant verification tasks in this early stage of the design flow, but also can be extracted semi-automatically from the textual specification in an interactive manner. The authors explain ...

This book presents the state-of-the art of one of the main concerns with microprocessors today, a phenomenon known as "dark silicon". Readers will learn how power constraints (both leakage and dynamic power) limit the extent to which large portions of a chip can be powered up at a given time, i.e. how much actual performance and functionality the microprocessor can provide. The authors describe their research toward the future of microprocessor development in the dark silicon era, covering...

This book presents the methodologies and for embedded systems design, using field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, for the most modern applications. Coverage includes state-of-the-art research from academia and industry on a wide range of topics, including applications, advanced electronic design automation (EDA), novel system architectures, embedded processors, arithmetic, and dynamic reconfiguration.

This book explains for readers how 3D chip stacks promise to increase the level of on-chip integration, and to design new heterogeneous semiconductor devices that combine chips of different integration technologies (incl. sensors) in a single package of the smallest possible size. The authors focus on heterogeneous 3D integration, addressing some of the most important challenges in this emerging technology, including contactless, optics-based, and carbon-nanotube-based 3D integration, as w...

This book discusses the opportunities offered by disruptive technologies to overcome the economical and physical limits currently faced by the electronics industry. It provides a new methodology for the fast evaluation of an emerging technology from an architectural prospective and discusses the implications from simple circuits to complex architectures. Several technologies are discussed, ranging from 3-D integration of devices (Phase Change Memories, Monolithic 3-D, Vertical NanoWires-ba...

This book covers key concepts in the design of 2D and 3D Network-on-Chip interconnect. It highlights design challenges and discusses fundamentals of NoC technology, including architectures, algorithms and tools. Coverage focuses on topology exploration for both 2D and 3D NoCs, routing algorithms, NoC router design, NoC-based system integration, verification and testing, and NoC reliability. Case studies are used to illuminate new design methodologies.

This book introduces readers to alternative approaches to designing efficient embedded systems using unconventional number systems. The authors describe various systems that can be used for designing efficient embedded and application-specific processors, such as Residue Number System, Logarithmic Number System, Redundant Binary Number System Double-Base Number System, Decimal Floating Point Number System and Continuous Valued Number System. Readers will learn the strategies and trade-offs...