For the near future, the recent predictions and roadmaps of silicon semiconductor technology all agree that the number of transistors on a chip will keep growing exponentially according to Moore's Law, pushing technology towards the system-on-a-chip (SOC) era. However, we are increasingly experiencing a productivity gap where the chip complexity that can be handled by current design teams falls short of the possibilities offered by technological advances. Together with growing time-to-market pressures, this drives the need for innovative measures to increase design productivity by orders of magnitude. It is commonly agreed that the solutions for achieving such a leap in design productivity lie in a shift of the focus of the design process to higher levels of abstraction on the one hand and in the massive reuse of predesigned, complex system components (intellectual property, IP) on the other hand. In order to be successful, both concepts eventually require the adoption of new languages and methodologies for system design, backed-up by the availability of a corresponding set of system-level design automation tools. This book presents the SpecC system-level design language (SLDL) and the corresponding SpecC design methodology. The SpecC language is intended for specification and design of SOCs or embedded systems including software and hardware, whether using fixed platforms, integrating systems from different IPs, or synthesizing the system blocks from programming or hardware description languages. SpecC Specification Language and Methodology describes the SpecC methodology that leads designers from an executable specification to an RTL implementation through a well-defined sequence of steps. Each model is described and guidelines are given for generating these models from executable specifications. Finally, the SpecC methodology is demonstrated on an industrial-size example. The design community is now entering the system level of abstraction era and SpecC is the enabling element to achieve a paradigm shift in design culture needed for system/product design and manufacturing. SpecC Specification Language and Methodology will be of interest to researchers, designers, and managers dealing with system-level design, design flows and methodologies as well as students learning system specification, modeling and design.

Each model is described and guidelines are given for generating these models from executable specifications. Finally, the Spec C methodology is demonstrated on an industrial-size example. The design community is now entering the system level of abstraction era and Spec C is the enabling element to achieve a paradigm shift in design culture needed for system/product design and manufacturing.".

This comprehensive survey on the state of the art of SystemC in industry and research is organised into 11 self-contained chapters. Selected SystemC experts present their approaches in the domains of modelling, analysis and synthesis, ranging from mixed signal and discrete system to embedded software.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed joint postproceedings of the satellite activities held at the 7th International Conference on the Unified Modeling Language, UML 2004, in Lisbon, Portugal in October 2004 complementing the main conference track. The book presents reports on the 10 workshops held at UML and covers a broad range of topics around systems modelling; these reports are compiled by the respective workshop organizers. Furthermore 12 revised reviewed papers from the industry track are included as well as 11 short papers corresponding to selected poster/demo presentations and a summary on the UML tools exhibition.

Este libro presenta los desafíos planteados por las nuevas y sumamente poderosas tecnologías de integración de sistemas electrónicos, que están en la base de los cambios sociales hacia lo que llaman la Sociedad de la Información; en la que los dispositivos electrónicos se harán una parte incorporada de la vida diaria, encajados en casi cada producto. Es necesario un conocimiento cuidadoso de los desafíos para aprovechar la amplia gama de ocasiones ofrecidas por tales capacidades de integración y las correspondientes posibilidades de diseño de sistemas electrónicos.

This book will explain how to verify SoC (Systems on Chip) logic designs using "formal and "semiformal verification techniques. The critical issue to be addressed is whether the functionality of the design is the one that the designers intended. Simulation has been used for checking the correctness of SoC designs (as in "functional verification), but many subtle design errors cannot be caught by simulation. Recently, formal verification, giving mathematical proof of the correctness of designs, has been gaining popularity.For higher design productivity, it is essential to debug designs as early as possible, which this book facilitates. This book covers all aspects of high-level formal and semiformal verification techniques for system level designs.• First book that covers all aspects of formal and semiformal, high-level (higher than RTL) design verification targeting SoC designs.• Formal verification of high-level designs (RTL or higher).• Verification techniques are discussed with associated system-level design methodology.

System Design: A Practical Guide with SpecC presents the system design flow following a simple example through the whole process in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step fashion. Each step is described in detail in pictorial form and with code examples in SpecC. For each picture slide a detailed explanation is provided of the concepts presented. This format is suited for tutorials, seminars, self-study, as a guided reference carried by examples, or as teaching material for courses on system design. Features: Comprehensive introduction to and description of the SpecC language and design methodology; IP-centric language and methodology with focus on design reuse; Complete framework for system-level design from specification to implementation for SOCs and other embedded HW/SW systems. System Design: A Practical Guide with SpecC will benefit designers and design managers of complex SOCs, or embedded systems in general, by allowing them to develop new methodologies from these results, in order to increase design productivity by orders of magnitude. Designers at RTL, logical or physical levels, who are interested in moving up to the system level, will find a comprehensive overview within. The design models in the book define IP models and functions for IP exchange between IP providers and their users. A well-defined methodology like the one presented in this book will help product planning divisions to quickly develop new products or to derive completely new business models, like e-design or product-on-demand. Finally, researchers and students in the area of system design will find an example of a formal, well-structured design flow in this book.