The Future of High-Level Modeling and System-Level Design . Some - - PDF document

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1 CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS, INC.

The Future of High-Level Modeling and System-Level Design ……. Some Scenarios

Grant Martin Fellow, Cadence Labs Electronic Design Processes Workshop, Monterey, April 21-23, 2002

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Outline

• Six Scenarios for System Level Design
• What is the likely future?

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The Cult Scenario

• High Priests, Gurus, and their Acolytes
• Obscure Mathematics and Jargon
• Impenetrable to ordinary designers
• No flow

– Models have no reuse at lower levels of abstraction

• There is no mainstream

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The Niche Scenario

• Best practices today
• Dataflow: from algorithm to implementation
• Finite State Machine capture, simulation, and generation of

synthesisable code

• Most of the well-understood niches have been explored

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The Platform-Based Design Scenario

• Co-ordinated family of HW-SW architectures promoting high

levels of reuse of HW and SW virtual components

• If Platform-based design succeeds:

– Most designs are straight-forward derivatives

– Design = configuration, selection, “soft” programming

– Platforms can be designed with blood, sweat and tears

– System design helps, but only a small community

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The Hardware Scenario

• Bob Brodersen/BWRC SSHAFT group are key proponents for this approach
• Since HW = 100X better than SW in power and area, and 10X+ in performance,

why do anything in SW?

• Direct mapping from algorithms in high level models to HW implementation via

automated flows

• BUT: is this likely? For most products in DSM technologies?

– Requires Masks, $1M NRE, a Month, risk Management – Also requires generalised behavioural synthesis, beyond the known niches

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The Software Scenario

• Au contraire, most products will be done in software only
• Assumes triumph of the Platform-based approach

– Derivatives will be done soft, even reconfigurable HW done “soft”

• SW people will not take kindly to HW-based concepts of ‘system-level

design’ or ‘high-level modeling’

• Much more likely to:

– Hack C code – Use UML/SDL and the like and base flows on these – In this scenario, system level design = “software-software codesign”

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The Optimistic System-Level Design Scenario

• Function-architecture codesign is needed
• Platforms imply implementation choice
• Design space exploration is key to optimal product design
• Models of computation are important! Dataflow control!

System System Behavior Behavior System System Architecture Architecture Mapping Mapping Flow To Implementation Flow To Implementation Communication Refinement Performance Performance Simulation Simulation 1 3 4 2

A r c h i t e c t u r e Function

Optimal Mapping

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What are the pre-requisites for the

• ptimistic scenario?

Consensus on methodologie(s) and Model abstraction(s) Flow Lingua Franca

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What are the pre-requisites for the

• ptimistic scenario?

Flow Lingua Franca Consensus on methodologie(s) and Model abstraction(s)

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What is the likely future?

• I am an optimist
• System Level Design will have a Radiant Future
• We’ve got to work hard to make it happen
• We’ve got to keep educating people on the important issues.